


Subjectivity

by FeatheredScorpion



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No War (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Humor, Post-Time Skip, Slow Burn, Swearing, no beta we play on classic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 09:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27468541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatheredScorpion/pseuds/FeatheredScorpion
Summary: In which Ashe didn’t get adopted by Lonato, Byleth didn’t become a professor, Fodlan didn’t go to war, and Sothis didn’t get nearly enough credit for the shit she put up with.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Comments: 54
Kudos: 82





	1. On the Subjectivity of Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth questions her sanity, Ashe makes a mistake, and Sothis gets insulted a lot.

Emotions, Byleth decided, were not really worth the effort.

This was not a new thought; goddess, no. This was a conclusion five years in the making, ever since Sothis had so charmingly appeared in her mind and decided that being tethered to a “boring, empty husk” would _simply_ _not do._

The first feeling Byleth had gotten to experience was pain, when Sothis got angry at her failure to drink a vulnerary after being stabbed in the gut. Apparently, the pain was there to help her know when she’d  _ reached her limit, you absolute fool, do you know what will happen to me if you die? _ Byleth didn’t know, and apparently neither did Sothis, but now injuries would actually hurt. 

It was all terribly inconvenient and, without question, a downgrade. The first time she’d felt pain, she’d had a visible reaction to it, and that somehow made things even worse. Jeralt had completely freaked out, worried that the sudden change meant his daughter was dying (she wasn’t, anymore, she’d drank the damn vulnerary). He’d benched her the rest of the fight, and afterwards she overheard the other mercenaries in the troop whispering about the Ashen Demon going soft. Sothis had a lot to say in response to that, and when Byleth asked her why, she was immediately and oh so  _ graciously _ blessed with a new feeling: embarrassment. Afterwards, Sothis swore up and down that it had been an accident. Byleth still didn’t talk to her for a week.

Since then, every few months she would randomly get hit with new feelings. Sometimes Sothis would explain what they were. Sometimes she’d explain why they were useful. Sometimes she’d just pretend to be asleep. It was hit and miss, with Sothis.

Once, Byleth had tried to complain about these new feelings. 

_ They make it harder. _

_ Make  _ **_what_ ** _ harder? I cannot read your entire mind, you know, you will need to be more specific. _

_...everything.  _

_ Oh, is ‘melodramatic’ the mood of the month? Get over yourself, most humans feel them much, much more intensely than you do. Most gods too, I think… though... I’m not sure why I know that… _

Lost in thought, Sothis had drifted back to whatever depths of Byleth’s mind she slept in and not come out for days. Byleth, for her part, never brought it up again.

They weren’t all bad, of course, these... ‘emotions’. But the warmth of pride and the bubbling feeling of amusement could not hope to compensate for the crushing weariness of her latest acquisition:

Boredom.

Byleth stared into the shadows of the hallway for what had to be the fourth hour in a row and fervently cursed Sothis’s very existence (anger had been an early one, and was still a personal favorite of hers). There had been a time (four months ago if you were counting, which she absolutely was) when she could stand watch all night without any issue or loss of concentration. Despite having plenty of opportunities, she had never gotten around to explaining to Jeralt that this was no longer the case. After that whole “pain” fiasco five years back, it seemed easier to pretend nothing had changed.

So here she was, not even halfway through her shift guarding an unlit hallway of some lord or other’s decadent keep and praying that an assassin actually shows up, if only to give her something to  _ do _ . Although knowing her luck she’d capture them quickly and turn them in for questioning without incident, and then she’d get a pat on the back and six more hours in this  _ fucking hallway _ . Maybe they’d stab her. That still seemed like an improvement over her current predicament. There was one thing to be said for pain: it certainly wasn’t  _ boring _ .

As things stood, there was nothing for it but to wait. Byleth checked the location of the moonlight streaking in through the window: the edge of the sliver of silver light stopped right on the crack between the fourth and fifth tile. Alright, she would look away for a while, and it will have moved, and time will have passed, and she’ll be closer to leaving. Okay. This was fine.

She tried to wake up Sothis again (no luck). She tried to remember the words to that one drinking song, with the chorus that went “Get in, get out, quit fucking about”. Failing that, she tried to make up her own verse for a while, but she couldn’t quite get the syllables right, and nothing seemed to rhyme. Disappointing. She checked that all her weapons were still in their proper locations. She looked at the sliver of moonlight again and **_it was_** **_still on the crack between the fourth and fifth tile_** **.**

Byleth leaned back against the wall and let out a small growl of frustration. Verbally expressing these things did make her feel a bit better sometimes, and it’s not like anyone was around to-

Something moved in the hallway. 

Suddenly alert, she focused all her attention on the spot. The shadows were far too deep to really see anything, and at this point it was very possible that she was imagining things, but… There! A subtle shifting of shadows within shadows, and while it was true that it could just be the wind it was also true that at this point Byleth would take whatever entertainment she could bloody well get. Without another moment of hesitation, she cast an explosion of Fire directly into the hall and surged forwards.

After so long in pitch darkness, the bright light of the spell was nearly blinding for her, but it was far worse for the other figure in the hall, who let out a startled yelp as the world exploded around them. Byleth’s mind raced for a plan beyond “throw a fireball and charge”; no assassin worth their blade was going to go down without a fight.

_ Perhaps you should have spent some time on a plan while you were standing guard, instead of bothering me.  _

And really, it was just like Sothis to finally chime in right when Byleth needed her least.

_ Wow, rude, I heard that you know! _

But there was a more pressing issue now, which was that Byleth had nearly closed the distance to the would-be assassin and still didn’t have a plan. When Jeralt’s mercenary troop had been hired to assist with guard duty, they’d been instructed to make every effort to capture any intruders. And it made sense, really it did, but Byleth hadn’t earned the moniker “Ashen Demon” by being skilled at leaving foes alive, and she found herself blanking on non-lethal takedown options. Honestly, if the goddess had wanted humans to reliably survive attacks, she wouldn’t have made them weak to swords.

Mere feet away from the intruder, and now truly out of time, Byleth decided to try for a body slam. She angled herself to slam into them shoulder-first, throwing her considerable momentum right into their chest and sending both fighters tumbling to the ground. The assassin must have drawn a dagger at some point, as a searing pain bit into her back; it wasn’t a proper stab, luckily, just a shallow slash. It seemed that they hadn’t quite managed to get their bearings yet, and she had no intention to give them that chance. As she landed squarely on top of her foe, Byleth twisted to blindly grab at the knife-

And, well, in a way she succeeded. Her fist closed tightly around the blade of the dagger, and  _ oh _ this would have been so much easier without a pain response. 

_ Without a pain response, you would not have even noticed the dagger  _ Sothis contributed, unhelpfully. Byleth didn’t respond, as she was a tad distracted by trying to keep her grip on the blade as the assailant struggled to wrench it away. Determinedly keeping her foe pinned and ignoring how the dagger bit ever deeper into her palm, she reached back for her sword.

“What- how are you- I swear I won’t hurt you, just let me  _ go- _ ” the assassin’s increasingly frantic pleas stopped abruptly as she finally managed to press her sword against their throat. They froze, expression unreadable in the darkness. Slowly, as if trying not to spook a wild beast, they let go of their dagger and put their hands up in surrender. Byleth finally dropped the knife blade, pain outweighed by the warm feeling of triumph.

At just that moment, possibly having sensed that there was no more work to do, the guards arrived.

===================

Fortunately, one of the guards came equipped with bandages, and Byleth was able to dodge the rather embarrassing death of bleeding out through her palm. But even more fortunately, not a single one of them carried a vulnerary. This meant she would have to return to the guard house for healing, which in turn meant no more hallway duty! Combined with her capture of the assassin, this night had turned out better than she’d hoped. The attack  _ could _ have come two hours earlier, sure, but at this point she was just thankful it had happened at all. 

As the party began to make their way towards the guardhouse, Byleth glanced back at the patch of moonlight she’d been using to track the time. It was nearly halfway through the fourth tile. Of course it moved now, the absolute traitor. 

“U-um, excuse me…” came a soft, hesitant voice, “I know it’s probably not my place to ask, but is your hand okay?”

She turned to the captured assassin in surprise. This was new, enemies speaking to her. People on her own side rarely spoke to her if they could help it, and on the occasion that they did, they didn’t expect a response. Although, her mercenary troop didn’t often get hired to take prisoners. Maybe this was a normal prisoner etiquette thing. She tried to think back to other guarding assignments, try to find something to base her response on.

It seemed she’d been staring blankly a bit too long, because the man murmured a hasty apology and looked away. Now that she could see him by the light of the guards’ torches, he looked to be around her age, perhaps just a few years younger. He was only a few inches taller than her, with silver hair, green eyes, and… 

There were  _ freckles _ . In a  _ cluster. _ On his  _ face _ . Shouldn’t be allowed, that. It made her feel… huh. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she tried and failed to identify the emotion. Perhaps Sothis would know?

_ Oh, I’m sorry, were you thinking to me? And here I thought I was being ‘unhelpful’ today. I’d better go back to sleep now, so I have enough energy to show up the next time you don’t need me.  _

...nevermind.

“It hurts. But I’ve had worse.” Byleth stated finally. The assassin jumped a little, visibly startled to have gotten a response. Byleth herself was a bit surprised to have given him one, but it was the least she could do. He had saved her from the monotony of the hallway, after all. 

“O-oh, that’s… good?” 

  
  
Byleth simply nodded.

The rest of the walk was made in silence.


	2. On the Subjectivity of Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth delivers a report, Jeralt rethinks his parenting choices, and Ashe answers some questions.

There were several reasons Jeralt carried his flask with him everywhere. 

For one, alcohol was useful for cleaning wounds in a pinch, even if it hurt like hell. For another, it was useful for dulling the pain of injuries until a proper healer could be found. 

But his foremost reason for carrying the flask was standing in front of him with a completely disinterested expression, explaining how she’d fended off a dagger by  _ grabbing it by the blade. _

Jeralt stared blankly at Byleth for a moment, then took a swig from the flask to ground himself. “So,” he began cautiously, afraid of what new madness the answer would reveal, “why didn’t you have your sword?”

“I did.” Okay, well she hadn’t  _ completely _ lost her mind yet, then. That was something, he supposed. Though it did raise more questions, namely...

“...why didn’t you  _ use _ your sword?”

She blinked at him. “I was told to capture any intruders.”

Of course. Jeralt chuckled humorlessly.  _ Well, Sitri, your only daughter has almost forgotten how  _ not _ to kill people. Still think I’ll be a good father? _

“...we’ll review non-lethal sword hits tomorrow, okay kiddo?” He gave Byleth a gentle smile. She stared blankly back and nodded, as usual. “You were just lucky that the dagger wasn’t poisoned,” he noted with a sigh, taking in her heavily-bandaged hand. “Go get cleaned up; healer’s the third door on the left.” 

Wordlessly, Byleth strode out of the room, leaving Jeralt with a handful of guards and what had to be Fodlan’s least intimidating assassin. Also possibly Foldlan’s most overconfident, if he hadn’t bothered to poison his only weapon. He moved to stand in front of the kid, who met his glower with a nervous chuckle.

“Alright, you little brat, start talking. Who hired you?” 

The boy’s eyes widened. “H-hired me? I wasn’t hired by anyone.”

Jeralt scoffed. “What, so you just woke up today and decided to break into Lord Mycen’s keep for the hell of it?” 

“Well, no, not... exactly…” He smiled nervously. “I just- I heard he had some valuable stuff, so I thought I’d just sneak in and… see what I could find.” 

Ah, so that’s how the kid was gonna play this. Theft was a serious charge, but not compared to attempted assassination.

“Sir, he was carrying these items when we apprehended him.” One of the guardsmen stepped forward to hand Jeralt a small pack.

“You mean when  **Byleth** apprehended him” Jeralt corrected off-handedly as he looked through the smattering of stolen possessions. “It sounds to me like you all were completely useless.” Apparently useless enough that he was summoned to the guardhouse to play detective at two in the morning, since not one of them was capable of interrogating a criminal who had been  _ caught red handed _ .

He took another pull from the flask. The shit he’d put up with for a paycheck.

Frowning, Jeralt pulled an ornate ceremonial dagger from the pack. “I remember this; it was in a display case by the armory. That’s at the complete opposite end of the building.” The kid would have needed to sneak past at least ten guards on the way to the Lord’s living quarters, he realized. From the worried look on the present guardsmen’s faces, they’d just realized the same thing. Classic. He made a mental note to advise Lord Mycen that some performance reviews might be in order. “How did you get this?”

The assassin stared at him quizzically. “I stole it. I, ah, thought I had already admitted to that?”

“Don’t get smart with me” Jeralt snapped. “There’s a bunch of valuable display items outside the treasury. Yet you only took this dagger, and then snuck across the entire keep instead of escaping.” The ‘thief’ nodded hesitantly, then visibly winced when Jeralt let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Alright brat, enough with this bullshit. Who hired you to kill Lord Mycen?”

“ _ What?!”  _ The assassin’s voice shot up at least an octave, his eyes wide and panicked. “I- You- There’s been a misunderstanding, what makes you think-”

“That you’re an assassin?” Jeralt snapped. “I’m not an idiot! You broke into a castle. You ignored most of the valuables. You were capture in the hall leading to Lord Mycen’s room, and you tried to stab Byleth when she caught you!” There were also the rumors of an assassination plot that Mycen’s spies had picked up, which had led to Jeralt’s mercenaries being hired in the first place, but he knew better than to risk compromising their intel. He folded his arms. “Do you want me to go on, or are you ready to talk?” 

“I… suppose all that is true.” The boy looked downwards, refusing to meet his gaze. “And I’m sorry about pulling my knife, really I am. I just panicked. But!” He straightened up now, green eyes burning with renewed determination. “That doesn’t mean that I was planning to kill Lord Mycen.”

“Oh, it doesn’t? Well then, let’s hear your excuse.” Jeralt fervently hoped he didn’t come up with one; as the contents of his flask ran low, so too did his patience.

The assassin hesitated, chewing his lip and staring off to the side as if considering his options. As if he actually  _ had _ any options.

“...fine.” He visibly deflated a little. “I was hired to scout the place.”

“To scout.” Jeralt repeated flatly, hoping his tone fully conveyed his disbelief. 

“Well, yes,” the assassin replied, sounding slightly indignant. “Before large heists, it’s normal to send a scout in to figure out the layout, what routes the guards take, where the light sources are... things like that.” He gestured to the pack. “I have to give them stuff taken from around the castle to prove that I had actually managed it.”

And dammit, Jeralt thought begrudgingly, that sort of made sense. It also neatly explained away the lack of poison or malicious enchantments on the dagger. And the brat certainly didn’t  _ seem _ like an assassin… though, he reflected, no one who seemed like an assassin would be able to stay in the business for long. But if he was telling the truth, it meant that Jeralt had been woken up at two in the morning to interrogate a petty burglar. Wonderful.

Although...

“Fine, for now we’ll say you were scouting. That means you still haven’t answered my first question: Who. Hired. You?”

“Well, ah, I don't actually know.” The thief gave Jeralt a sheepish grin. Jeralt glared back, unimpressed. “No, really! I only met the messenger once, and the only information he gave me was a time and place to hand over the items and deliver the report.”

Veeeery interesting. That was a level of secrecy that he doubted looters would bother with. Though the thief seemed unaware of it himself, Jeralt was willing to bet the organizer of this ‘heist’ was actually the assassin they were guarding against. 

“Is that so? What time is this meeting set for?”   
  
“Noon tomorrow. Or, well, I guess today at this point” he amended, glancing out the window.

Jeralt swore under his breath. That wasn’t a lot of time to make a plan. If they could manage to track the plot to its source, they could wrap up this contract and head north to Fhirdiad earlier than expected.

His pondering was interrupted by the sound of footsteps as Byleth walked back into the room. 

“Hey kiddo.” Jeralt greeted her with a soft smile, still holding out hope that one of these days she’d actually smile back. Today, she just nodded in acknowledgement. “Heading back for the rest of your shift?” 

Something strange happened on Byleth’s face then, and if Jeralt didn’t know better he’d think that for a split second she looked panicked. But when he blinked, her expression was flat as always. He must have imagined it.

“No. I’m not.”

He waited for more of an explanation. After a period of extended silence, he realized that there wasn’t one.

“Okay.” He wouldn’t argue; she’d more than earned a break, even if she had never complained about long shifts before. Few mercenaries could claim to hide well enough to surprise even a thief. 

Actually... “Make sure you get your rest.” A plan was beginning to take shape. 

“I’ve got a job for you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter chapter, but the next one is very long to make up for it.
> 
> (To avoid confusion, timeline-wise this does take place post-timeskip. Jeralt just looks at anyone from Byleth's generation or younger and thinks 'That is a Child. A Youth. A Whippersnapper.')


	3. On the Subjectivity of Value

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe throws some things and Byleth gets vindicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, this is the first chapter that might earn that "Graphic Depictions of Violence" warning.

Ashe was having, to put it very lightly, a terrible day.

He’d spent the night in a jail cell, been woken up  _ far _ too early, and was now preparing to meet up with an assassin while being tailed by a mercenary. And yet, somehow, this was not the worst day he’d ever had. It probably didn’t even make the top five, a fact which would have been reassuring if it weren’t so depressing. 

He casually lingered outside the rendezvous point, a narrow back alley. The alleyway was honestly excessive; crime was so common in this area of the city that they could have had the meeting in the center of the square without issue. Anyone who frequented this part of town knew when to go conveniently blind and/or deaf. Perhaps unaware of this fact, the mercenary -Byleth, she’d been called- was making a commendable effort to be discreet. He might not have even noticed her following him if he hadn’t known to look. 

The plan, as Jeralt had explained it, was as follows: Byleth would tail him and listen in on the meeting. After Ashe passed off the stolen goods and information to the assassin, she’d either follow the man to his employer or capture him for questioning. Provided everything went as expected, Ashe would be free to go once she switched targets. If things didn’t go as expected, she had Jeralt’s permission to  _ recapture him by any means necessary, but for fuck’s sake, Byleth, use your sword this time! _ (Ashe had taken exception to that, especially since they hadn’t even given back his dagger, but a glare from Jeralt had convinced him not to argue the point further.)

Threats of mortal violence aside, Ashe thought it was a wonderful plan. What made it even better was the knowledge he wasn’t  _ actually _ going to hand over any of the stolen items. Though he was sure Byleth would pick up on that lie by the time the meeting ended, he was also sure she’d prioritize capturing an assassin over returning some junk that Lord Mycen probably wouldn’t even miss. With any luck, he’d be out of the city before sunset.

The distant chimes of a clocktower signaled the coming of the hour. Alright, showtime. He took a deep breath, turned into the alley-

And froze, because it seemed that his employer had decided to bring along some friends. Three of them, to be exact, though for what it was worth none of them were obviously armed. And it truly wasn’t worth much at all; Ashe knew a trap when he saw one. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve turned and ran at this point, paycheck be damned, but these were far from normal circumstances. It was time to decide who scared him more: the four probably-armed men in front of him, or the one definitely-armed mercenary at his back.

He remembered how she’d emerged from the darkness in a burst of flame, as if sent straight from the depths of hell itself, and found that the answer was obvious.

“Good morning!” Ashe strode forward and greeted the man who’d hired him with his most chipper smile, doing his darndest to convey the sentiment  _ I’m harmless, I swear, please don’t kill me _ . He didn’t even acknowledge the others; in the loose code of criminal etiquette, it was considered rude to draw attention to an obvious set up.

“Indeed it is” the assassin replied smoothly, with just a touch of threatening smugness. Ashe could practically hear the unspoken  _ for one of us, at least _ at the end of his sentence. This man was most likely new to the business, still caught up in the novelty of how  _ dangerous  _ and  _ edgy _ his job made him. Experienced assassins never acted that unprofessionally. “Did everything go to plan?” 

“Of course.” Pulling out the castle map, Ashe pointed out the locations of guard patrols, light sources, blind spots… He explained his findings on autopilot while keeping an eye on the extra muscle and trying to sort out a plan that wouldn’t end in his violent death. This was why he usually steered clear of amateur assassins; a number of them had an unfortunate tendancy to use murder as a solution to every problem. But he was short on funds this month after paying his siblings’ tuition costs, so he had been willing to take the risk.

All too soon, and without coming up with a better idea then “run for it,” he finished delivering his report. The assassin took the map as his three companions drifted closer. “Thank you, you have been a wonderful asset to the cause. Unfortunately-”

Ashe didn’t even wait for him to finish, he could recognize a “you’ve outlived your usefulness” speech for what it was. Terrifying mercenaries be damned, he wasn’t sticking around for this. He turned and rushed for the alley entrance, just as two  _ more _ thugs turned into the alleyway, blocking his exit. Seriously? He was almost flattered that the assassin thought this was at all necessary. For the amount it must have cost to hire these men, it would almost have been cheaper to just pay him. 

He didn’t stop running, instead pulling the ornamental dagger from his pack and throwing it straight into the throat of the larger of the two new arrivals. The man stumbled backwards with a sickening gurgle, his companion jerking away in surprise. Ashe shoved his way past them and was nearly out of the alley- 

He jolted to a stop as a sickening cold washed over him, accompanied by a horrific high-pitched wailing noise that seemed to be beamed directly into his soul. He sank to his knees, gritting his teeth as his ears rang. Magical attacks usually weren’t a problem for him, comparatively, but there was nothing he could do against the side effects of a Banshee spell. With great effort Ashe managed to pivot in place to glare back at his attackers, but until the spell wore off he was essentially glued to this spot.

One of the men approached him cautiously, wielding a hand axe. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before he realized that Ashe had already thrown his only weapon.

The gravity of the situation was quickly sinking in. So, this was it, huh? (The axeman was just a few feet away.) On an intellectual level, Ashe had known since the day he committed to this way of life that it was his fate to either rot in a jail cell or get cut down in a back alley. (The axeman was in front of him now.) But it hadn’t ever seemed so… real.

As the axe lifted, he wondered how his siblings would fare without him. He’d paid for their current year of schooling, but after that… Hopefully they’d learned enough, made enough connections to get honest jobs. If not-

He closed his eyes, head bowed. The axe was swinging down-

There was a heavy thud, though it sounded like it came from just in front of him. Ashe slowly opened his eyes, afraid that any movement would break the illusion and he’d realize that he was dead after all.

It took a moment to process what he was seeing. Lying on the ground before him was the axe. It couldn’t have been dropped, though. The man was clearly still holding it… or at least, his  _ hand _ was… and part of his arm...

Dazed, Ashe finally looked up.

Byleth stood above him facing the attacker, sword raised before her in a defensive stance and jacket billowing slightly in the wind. In front of her the axeman was staring, transfixed, at the steady spurts of blood gushing from his lopped-off elbow. The alleyway was shrouded in a surreal silence, broken only by the rhythmic pattering of blood droplets hitting the cobblestones. Even the noise drifting in from the outside street seemed somehow muted. 

Time had slowed to a stop. No one dared to move. Even the unwilling amputee seemed to be too shocked to scream. 

Then Byleth skewered the man with her sword, and all hell broke loose.

The assassin barked out commands and pulled a dagger as two of his compatriots rushed forward, drawing swords of their own. The third - who Ashe realized must be the dark mage - moved backwards and began channelling magic, preparing for a spell. Byleth met the two swordsmen head-on, holding her own despite being outnumbered. She dodged and parried at an incredible speed, searching for an opening. Unfortunately, the mage was ready to cast again, just waiting to get a clean shot. And for all that he wanted to help, Ashe was still stuck in place without a weapon- 

His eyes landed on the hand axe in front of him, which unfortunately was just as much hand as axe in its current state. Crud. It was the best plan, logically, but that didn’t mean he  _ liked _ it. Keeping half an eye on the battle and trying not to think too hard, he carefully pried the axe handle from the disembodied grip.

The Banshee spell had weakened just enough by this point to let him clamber to his feet. No one was paying him any attention as he lined up his throw. Ashe knew he only had one shot at this, but he’d always had a knack for ranged weapons. Deep breath, focus, and…

The axe flew from his hand, spinning through the air to embed itself blade-first right in the mage’s skull. The man’s body convulsed, a spell flying wildly from his fingers and slamming into the wall. One of the swordsmen battling Byleth was momentarily distracted by the blast, and she used the opening to cut him down. Now that she was no longer being flanked, she made quick work of the remaining swordsman, running him through.

Before Byleth could fully yank her weapon free from the new corpse, the assassin darted in to slash at her with his dagger. Despite being unbalanced by the heavy body impaled on her sword, Byleth sidestepped just enough for the blow to land on her left thigh instead of her stomach. She walloped the assassin’s shoulder with the sword hilt as she extracted it, and the two began a furious battle. They appeared evenly matched, as Byleth was slowed down by the gaping wound on her leg and the assassin was slowed down by a comparative lack of skill. 

Meanwhile, Ashe had found that he could move freely again. He cast around for something to arm himself with. Unfortunately most of the corpses (and by extension, their weapons) were near the dueling pair, and he didn’t fancy getting any closer to the whirling cyclone of blades. Although, there was one  _ arm _ ament, as it were, very close by.

The assassin staggered in surprise as something heavy smacked into the side of his head. Perhaps understandably, being hit with a severed arm hit threw him off his rhythm. Byleth lunged forward to deal a finishing blow, slashing him savagely across his middle. The man staggered backwards, then slowly began to collapse. His body hit the ground with a muffled thump as the light left his eyes. The alleyway was eerily silent as Byleth stared blankly at the corpse, perhaps remembering that she was supposed to take the man prisoner.

Four things occurred to Ashe then, in quick succession. One: the mission had not gone to plan, so Byleth was now under orders to capture him. Two: when swords were involved, Byleth apparently did not know how to capture people without killing them. This would be even more worrying if not for points three: Ashe was closer to the entrance of the alleyway than she was; and four: her leg was injured, so he was almost certainly faster. The way Byleth’s gaze snapped over to him suggested that she’d figured out at least point number one, which meant it was Time To Go.

For the second time that day, Ashe turned on his heel and made a mad dash for the outside street. A heavy THUD from behind made him glance over his shoulder, to find that Byleth was not pursuing him, but sprawled on the ground. Perhaps she had tripped…? That didn’t seem likely, though. Now just steps away from the exit and with curiosity overriding caution, he slowed to a stop and watched over his shoulder as she attempted to stagger to her feet. Byleth’s left leg was clearly moving very stiffly, and it seemed that she wouldn’t be able to run. 

_ Which means this’ll be an easy escape _ he thought instinctively, taking a few steps out of the alley. He stopped a second later as his conscience kicked in; he couldn’t just leave her here! ...well, he  _ could _ . It would be very easy to do, and it was the option that was least likely to result in capture. Besides, she should be able to get back to the guardhouse on her own, in spite of the injury. She had fought off an assassin like that, after all. 

She’d be fine. He should just keep walking.

He glanced back. 

Byleth was now attempting to heave herself to her feet, leaning against the alley wall for support. She got most of the way up, only to collapse as her injured leg buckled beneath her. Any delusions Ashe had about her being fine on her own were shattered; she couldn’t even  _ stand _ . There must have been a pretty nasty venom on the assassin’s dagger for her situation to deteriorate that quickly. 

Right. That settled it. Ashe turned around and walked back into the alleyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I've only known Ashe for a few hours, but if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in this alley" - Byleth, apparently.
> 
> It's Ashe's curse to have a bad time in Chapter 3. I don't make the rules.


	4. On the Subjectivity of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sothis delivers a lecture, Ashe wins a staring contest, and Byleth practices the art of conversation.

Byleth had failed missions before, of course. 

She may be one of the best mercenaries in the business, but it happened to everyone. Sometimes they couldn’t investigate all the chests before the battle ended (it’s not stealing if it happens  _ during _ the fight). Sometimes a target got away. Sometimes the villagers they were supposed to be protecting charged straight to their deaths instead of retreating to safety. These things just happened sometimes. It was a fact of life.

But even compared to those, today had been a complete wash. She’d accidentally killed the primary target without getting the information they needed. Their only other lead, the thief with the freckles, was in a position to easily escape.

Oh, and her leg wasn’t working. That was an issue too.

_ ‘That’s an issue too?’ That is the PRIMARY issue, you absolute fool. Of all the humans I could be tethered too, why did I have to get one without any sense of self-preservation? Seriously, you knew you were outnumbered, and yet you still felt the need to... _

Byleth examined the gaping wound, trying to tune Sothis out (this was easier than it should’ve been; it seemed that either the poison or the blood loss was making her head fuzzy). She idly wondered if she could convince Jeralt to spare her his lecture if she explained that Sothis had already delivered one. Though that was assuming she made it back alive, which was looking rather questionable right now. Even if the poison didn’t kill her, she was in no position to make it across the city to the guardhouse. Sure, Jeralt knew the meeting’s approximate location, but he wouldn’t be expecting her back for a while now. And given that she’d witnessed two brawls and a stabbing on their way to this alley, holding out long enough for rescue wouldn’t be easy. 

_ BYLETH! _ She jolted a bit in surprise as Sothis yelled in her head.  _ PAY ATTENTION! He’s coming back!  _ Who… what? Damn, she really was getting lightheaded.

She looked up and, sure enough, the thief had apparently passed up his escape opportunity and was now approaching her. Great. Wonderful. Hopefullt he was just here to rob the existing corpses, and not to make another one. She grabbed her sword (when had she decided to put it down?) and glared up at him. It probably wasn’t terribly intimidating since they both knew she couldn’t stand up, but he stopped with a frown a few feet away nonetheless. 

To her surprise, he knelt down to her level. “Hey, it’s okay,” he murmured softly, as if speaking to a child. “I just want to help you. Can I see the cut?” She hesitated; he seemed earnest enough, but some people were very good at seeming.  _ You’re probably dead either way _ , Sothis pointed out. Fair enough.

It took another few seconds for her to realize that she hadn’t actually responded. She nodded, the motion feeling strange with all the fog in her head. He moved to her side and began a careful examination of the gash on her leg, frowning. He was being very gentle in his motions, though he needn’t have bothered; she couldn’t feel anything.  _ Tell him that, it might be important _ . Huh, she’d never heard Sothis sound so worried. Okay.

“It’s numb.” 

He looked up, eyes wide with alarm. “It’s  _ what _ now?” 

Huh, maybe he hadn’t heard. Sounds were so strange right now, after all. Muted. She repeated herself, or at least tried to. It was hard to tell if she’d made any noise at all.

Oh. Now it seemed he was asking something else. She tried so very hard to focus, but the words were garbled and her vision was swarming with dark shapes. 

And now the thief was leaving, and Sothis was yelling, and everything seemed so very, very difficult, and…

A glass bottle was pressed into her hand. She tried to look at it, but couldn’t make much out through the shadowy static. Now her hand was being pushed towards her face, so maybe she was supposed to drink it? She wasn’t thirsty, but…

Byleth jolted as the vulnerary hit her system and the fog abruptly lifted. Her vision cleared as she blinked and straightened up, coming back to reality. 

“Oh, thank the goddess. Can you hear me?” She turned to the thief, who was kneeling by her side and holding a few different bottles. He must have taken them from one of the bodies, she realized; just how much time had passed? His eyes were beginning to widen with alarm; oh, right, he’d asked her a question. She nodded, and he visibly relaxed a bit.

“Okay, that’s good. Is your leg still numb?” She gave another nod. Her head was getting dizzy again...

“Alright,” he sighed, putting down all but one of the bottles. He uncapped it, then hesitated. “Do you think you could let go of your sword? This is going to hurt a lot, and I’m worried you may try to stab me.” Oh, she hadn’t even realized she was still holding it. She put it down obligingly, and a moment later-

Her leg went from nothing to absolute agony in milliseconds, spots dancing in front of her eyes. The exposed flesh inside the cut was bubbling as if it was being boiled, a foaming red and purple mess leaking out with a hiss. To her side the thief murmured reassurances as he continued to empty the bottle’s contents into the gash. After what felt like an eternity, the bubbling died down and the pain slowly dwindled down to what she’d expect from a regular sword wound.

“You should be stable now, I think.” The thief gave her a small smile and passed her another vulnerary. “Let me know when you’re ready to try standing up again, okay? I’m going to see how many healing potions I can scavenge.” Once she nodded her understanding, he got up and went to loot the rest of the corpses.

She took a few gulps from the vulnerary. Worryingly, it didn’t seem to be doing anything to close the wound, though the bleeding had finally slowed down. But her head was feeling much better, so it was time to get up and- 

_ Oh no you don’t! You’ve been given an opportunity to rest, and you are going to take it!  _

_ I’m  _ **_fine,_ ** _ Sothis. _

_ You are in no condition to limp your way back to the guardhouse from here! I almost lost you once today, it’s not happening again! _

_ Aww, you do care about me!  _ Byleth thought back, mainly to rile her up. She didn’t take the bait though, and went silent. Oh well. While she was loath to admit it, Sothis was right; Byleth could use a break after everything that had happened in the last… hour? She wasn’t really sure how much time had passed since the fight had started. 

With some effort, Byleth shifted to lean back against the wall, keeping her sword by her side in case of trouble. Occasionally a figure from outside would peer into the alleyway for a few moments, register the six dead bodies, and then wisely decide to move on. Meanwhile the thief, true to his word, had made himself busy searching through the pockets of each of the corpses. She noticed that he seemed to be taking gold and trinkets as well as potions, and had apparently decided to keep the assassin’s poisoned dagger, but figured it was best not to make a fuss about that. 

One man wasn’t deterred by the gruesome scene and started to enter the alleyway, only to freeze in his tracks, staring at a point just beyond Byleth. She’d glanced over her shoulder to see her thief (stop  _ laughing, _ Sothis, she just meant the thief on her side) fixing him with an absolutely brutal death glare. The tense standoff between the two ended abruptly when he suddenly leapt up and drew his dagger, at which point the intruder cut and ran. Byleth was honestly kind of impressed; though he was passable at fighting, she hadn’t expected him to be able to intimidate anyone. 

She re-evaluated her assessment of his combat ability when he moved over to the dark mage’s body. Byleth realized she hadn’t actually seen the man’s death, only the resulting blast, but she was fairly certain the thief had still been stuck in place at that point. Interesting. Perhaps she should ask him about it.

“Hey…” dang, did he ever tell her his name? She felt like he must have at some point, but she wasn’t in the habit of remembering strangers’ names, so it was impossible to tell. She needed something to call him, though. “...freckle thief?” Close enough.

He turned, laughing incredulously. “‘Freckle Thief’? That’s certainly a new one. I do have a name, you know.” He was smiling as he said it, so she must not have offended him too badly.

Feeling ill-equipped to correct her breach of conversational etiquette, Byleth opted to ignore the issue completely.  _ Coward _ , contributed Sothis, who hadn’t remembered the thief’s name either so she could shut up. Anyways... 

“You took out that mage, right?” He nodded, looking a bit puzzled at this non-sequitur. Hm. To get a critical headshot with a throwing axe from that distance was no simple feat. Between that and the dagger throw she’d witnessed before he got hit with the Banshee spell, he was surprisingly skilled at combat. Seemed a bit of a waste of talent for petty thievery. “Are you sure you’re not an assassin?” she asked next, realizing a second too late that it sounded like an accusation.

“Wha-”

“I just meant, you’d be good at it.” Was that better? That was probably better.

“Oh. I, ah… thanks?” 

There. Complement delivered successfully. She took another sip of the vulnerary and avoided eye contact.

_...you are completely hopeless. _

The thief stared at her for a few seconds longer, then turned back to his task with a shake of his head. “I, um, don’t really know if you care, but my name is Ashe, for the record” he muttered as he resumed searching the dark mage’s pockets. Byleth winced internally, feeling like a bit of an asshole for not asking earlier. Too late now, though. 

A minute later, he stood up. “Okay, that’s the last of them. I’ve found two vulneraries and a concoction, which should be plenty to reach the guardhouse. Do you think you can stand?” 

Right, moment of truth. Bracing herself against the wall, she staggered to her feet, keeping all her weight on her right leg for now. Her left leg was difficult to move below the injury, but she somehow managed to position it underneath her. Ok. She started to shift her weight to her left, ignoring the flare of pain. Finally, cautiously, she removed her hand from the wall. Success!

“Yes,” she finally answered, now that she knew for sure. The thief (Ashe, his name was Ashe, she was going to actually remember it this time, dammit!) didn’t say anything for a minute, and she couldn’t see his expression. That would require turning around, and she didn’t trust her ability to move without falling over. But she  **had** managed to stand successfully.

_ You are absolutely ridiculous, you know that, right? What are you trying to prove with this stunt?  _

Byleth wasn’t sure, but felt that she’d definitely proven it. 

_...I hate you. _

The thie-  **Ashe** came over to stand in front of her, looking equal parts worried and skeptical. He’d looked worried most of the day, actually.  _ Wow, I wonder why  _ Sothis remarked sarcastically. Which… well, fair enough. “I’m honestly impressed that you managed that, but… can you walk?” 

_ If you fall over trying, you are not getting any of my sympathy,  _ Sothis warned, as if she was ever sympathetic to her struggles. All the same Byleth carefully considered her balance, the stiffness of her left side, and the amount of weight she was keeping on her right leg, and came to a conclusion. “No.”

“Right. Okay.” Ashe stared into space for a minute, seemingly lost in thought. “Let’s see, maybe if…”

===========================

It took some doing, but they figured out a way to get back. Byleth looped her left arm around Ashe’s shoulders, leaning heavily on him to keep weight off of her left leg while sort of just hopping along with her right. Ashe had struggled a bit with where to put his right arm, eventually settling on holding her right shoulder to help her stay balanced. With time, practice, and determination, they eventually found a manageable walking pace and set off for the guardhouse.

Silence prevailed for some time as they wandered through the city streets, stopping occasionally for Byleth to drink a healing potion. Though they’d neutralized the venomous residue at the surface of the cut, the venom’s magical effects would keep doing minor internal damage until she reached a proper healer. Or so Ashe had explained it, and he seemed to know what he was talking about; Byleth had always just counted on one of the healers in the mercenary troop to handle anything that required more than a bandage.

Perhaps predictably, Ashe broke the silence first. “So, um, I was wondering. Why did you step in to save me? I mean, I’m not complaining!” he clarified hastily, “I just… we don’t know each other, and you were greatly outnumbered, and it messed up your mission…” he trailed off. 

_ I’d like to know the same thing, actually _ added Sothis.

Byleth considered. It had been a very impulsive decision, which was probably why Sothis was in the dark too. But out of all the potential responses, she got the feeling ‘it was an accident’ wasn’t a great choice here. Neither was ‘your freckles gave me an emotion, and the voice in my head hasn’t explained what it is yet, so I wanted you to stick around for a bit’, even if that was pretty accurate.

_ Really? You’re still hung up on that?  _

Eventually, Byleth settled on “It wasn’t right of them to betray you.” It was  **a** reason, after all, even if it wasn’t the primary one. 

“Ah, I see.” Ashe seemed satisfied with that response; nailed it. His voice turned contemplative. “Honestly, I didn’t really see it as a betrayal. Betrayal implies a level of trust, I think, and we certainly never trusted each other. Never even told each other our names. I didn’t object to helping you capture him and he didn’t object to trying to kill me, but neither of us was disloyal because there wasn’t any loyalty to begin with. If that makes sense.”

Interesting. She hummed thoughtfully. “He hired you, though. Doesn’t that put you on the same side?”

He shrugged. “Maybe for mercenaries. Exchanging money doesn’t really mean much between criminals, since with enough skill you can always just take it back. It’s more of a bribe than a contract.” 

That made sense, she supposed. She cocked her head in puzzlement. “So, why did you help me, then? We didn’t trust each other either.”

_ Interesting use of the past tense, there.  _ Huh, she hadn’t even thought about it, but she supposed she did trust him. More than she trusted some of her fellow mercenaries, actually, which… wasn’t saying much.

“You saved my life! I couldn’t leave you to die!” Ashe exclaimed. He shook his head. “Honestly, even with my help you were incredibly lucky to survive that. I don’t know how he got ahold of cockatrice venom, but it’s absolutely brutal. That stuff can stop its victim’s heart in minutes.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t have mattered” Byleth quipped automatically. She nearly lost her balance a second later as Ashe suddenly stopped walking. She glanced over at him in confusion.

“A-are you-” His green eyes were blown wide with an even mixture of concern and alarm. “I-if you’re that unhappy with your life- Look, you don't have to go back to the guardstation, I know some other healers and I can get you out of the city by nightfall-” 

Byleth suddenly realized how her statement must have sounded to someone not in on the secret. Crud. It was sweet of him to care so much, though.  _ Yes, yes, it’s very nice, but how are you talking your way out of this one?  _ Good question; Jeralt had firmly instructed her not to share the fact that she didn’t have a heartbeat, and she knew there must be a good reason for that warning, even if she wasn’t sure what it was.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” she corrected hastily. “It was a joke.” He didn’t seem convinced, and they still weren’t moving. Inspiration hit. “Because people call me heartless a lot.” It wasn’t even a lie; she’d heard the other mercenaries say those words verbatim when Jeralt wasn’t in the room. They didn’t seem to care if she heard, probably because she never visibly reacted to anything they said.

“That’s not very kind of them,” Ashe remarked with a slight scowl, but apparently he’d bought the excuse because they started walking again. They were getting quite close to the guardstation now.

“I’ll be sure to tell them you said that.” 

Ashe barked out a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’m sure they’ll love that. A literal criminal calling them out for being assholes.”

Something about the self-deprecating way he said it gave her pause. “...you don’t like being a thief.” She phrased it as a statement, not a question.

He snorted. “Does anyone? ...actually, nevermind, don’t answer that. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it, but I don’t really have the skills for anything else, and I have to pay for my siblings’ school somehow.”

“Siblings?”

“Yeah. Cinder and Blaise.” She glanced up to see him smiling softly, and oh, there was that emotion again. “They’re off at boarding school right now. It’s expensive, but… I want them to be able to have honest lives, you know? It’s already too late for me, so I may as well make it count.” His smile had faded and that, Byleth decided, would simply  _ not do _ .

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, she had an idea. Sothis, catching on immediately, let out a low whistle.  _...seriously? You know Jeralt’s going to hate that.  _ But Jeralt, Byleth had decided, could deal.

“So, Ashe… ever considered becoming a mercenary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sothis is fun to write. It saddens me that she can only talk in Byleth's POV chapters.
> 
> On a related note, I've been using italics for both emphasis and for Sothis talking. Let me know if it's too confusing.


	5. On the Subjectivity of Selflessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeralt drinks a lot and Ashe makes a decision.

Ashe had, to put it simply, given up.

Today had started poorly, in a jail cell. Then it had turned hopeful, when the mercenaries made a plan that included a fair chance for him to escape. Then it had all gone to hell when the assassin decided to kill him. Then he’d been rescued, and once again thought he could get away. Then Byleth had very nearly died, and just when he’d resigned himself to being arrested in the process of bringing her back to the guardhouse, she’d offered him a job.

Point was, after all that emotional whiplash, Ashe had concluded that trying to maintain any control over what happened to him today was a crapshoot. Getting interviewed for a job by Jeralt, the legendary Blade Breaker? Who he’d repeatedly lied to the night before? Who was glaring daggers at him from across the table? Sure! Great! Why the hell not?

He shifted uncomfortably as Jeralt continued to stare at him. Eventually the mercenary sighed, took a swig from a flask, and spoke. “Alright, tell me everything that happened today. From the beginning.”

“Didn’t Byleth already-”

“I want to hear it from you.” Okay. Fair enough.

So Ashe recounted the story as Jeralt listened intently, periodically sipping his flask. He was drinking a lot, actually. Ashe wondered whether his tolerance was really that high, or if the alcohol inside was weak. Maybe it was filled with water. Either way, Jeralt was silent until Ashe reached the part about neutralizing the venom in the injury.

“How do you know it was cockatrice venom?”

Oh, good, a question he knew how to answer. “Ah, well, a lot of venoms will cause that discoloration and bleeding, but not that many induce numbness. The fact that the vulnerary didn’t heal the wound at all narrowed it down even more. Plus the assassin was carrying a common antidote for cockatrice venom, so it was fairly obvious once I found that.”

Perhaps he’d said too much, because Jeralt’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to know an awful lot about this for a common thief.”

Ashe smiled nervously. “I’ve, ah, worked with assassins before.” This conversation was quickly heading into dangerous territory. He needed to change the topic. “Oh! That reminds me, the assassin was carrying these.” He held out a sheaf of papers, which hopefully contained something interesting. (He’d originally taken them as a bargaining chip for his inevitable arrest, but Byleth had promised that he’d be allowed to go free even if the job didn’t work out.)

Across the table, Jeralt raised his eyebrows at the obvious change of topic, but leaned forward to take the papers all the same. His eyebrows rose even further as he scanned the documents. 

“Well, if this contract is legitimate, I guess we’ve found his employer.” 

“ _Seriously?!”_ Ashe let out a disbelieving laugh. “I mean, I figured the guy was an amateur, but…” To keep the contract _on his person_ was some next-level stupidity. Then again, so was carrying around an antidote to the rare venom he used on his weapon. It seemed like the assassin must have been getting by on money and combat skill rather than common sense. Not that he was complaining, mind.

Jeralt just hummed in agreement. He put the papers aside with a sigh. “Alright. Continue.”

Well, it seemed that the distraction had served its purpose. Ashe detailed the uneventful walk back to the guardstation, and how Byleth had offered him a job as a mercenary-

“But nothing about this makes any  _ sense _ ,” Jeralt objected.

“Well, yes,” Ashe conceded, “I suppose it  _ is _ a bit odd to give out job offers to someone you just met-”

Jeralt waved a hand dismissively. “Nah, that’s not the weird part. Between the life saving and your tragic sob story, most people would want to do  _ something _ .” He leaned forwards. “But this is  _ Byleth _ . The closest thing I’ve seen her have to an emotion was pain, and even that only happened  _ once _ . Until today I wasn’t convinced she even had the  _ capacity _ for empathy. And now she’s what, jumping in front of axes for someone she doesn’t even  _ know _ ?”

“I think you’re being a little unfair,” Ashe protested weakly. Sure, he wasn’t quite certain what to make of Byleth’s cold demeanor, but stoicism didn’t necessarily equate to cruelty. He remembered Byleth’s comment about how people called her heartless; while he wouldn’t have thought Jeralt was one of them, it seemed that he was wrong. 

“Unfair?! She’s called the Ashen Demon for a reason, kid.” Jeralt’s tone softened, and he looked off to the side, reminiscing. “There was this mercenary, Michelle, who traveled with us for over a decade. When Byleth was a teenager, Michelle left the troop and took a contract with the enemy. No hard feelings; they were paying better, after all. It happens sometimes. Anyways, Byleth ended up facing her in battle, and Michelle… well, she’d practically helped raise her, you know? So Michelle lowers her lance, turns away to fight someone else instead, but Byleth just…” He made a slicing motion. “Clean through her middle. Didn’t even look back, just went to the next fight.”

“T-that doesn’t mean-”

“I asked her about it afterwards.” Jeralt raised his voice to interrupt him. “She didn’t even know who I was talking about. And then when I explained, she just sort of nodded. Said it had been an easy fight. An  _ easy fight… _ ”   
  


“Y-yes, well, people don’t always say what they mean.” The story was disturbing, sure, but… He’d grown up on the streets, he knew what people were capable of if they felt like there was no other choice. And he knew firsthand how worryingly easy it could be to hide feelings of remorse, even from yourself. “M-maybe you just don’t know her well enough to recognize-”

_ “Excuse me?!” _

“I mean, it’s possible she just-”

“Oh, so you’re an expert now, are you? I think I know _my own_ _daughter_.” And at any other time that would’ve been a shocking revelation, but after everything that had happened today Ashe could barely find it in himself to be surprised. The two looked almost nothing alike, but sure. Relatives. Why the hell not.

“Fine. Believe what you’d like, but she did step in to save me. I don’t know why. But that’s how it happened.” It came across far more snappish than he’d intended, but this conversation was already a wash. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Jeralt stared him down for another minute, then shook his head with a sigh. “Look. Kid. I’m not saying that you’re lying, I just… I worry about her, you know?” He dragged a hand down his face. “I want so badly to believe that she does care about people, but after so many years…”

No one spoke for a full minute. Jeralt took a long pull from his flask, then slammed it down on the table. “Alright. What experience do you have? This is supposed to be an interview, right?”

“Um, well…” Ashe stammered for a moment, taken aback by the sudden change in topic. “I’ve, er, been a thief most of my life, so-”

“What weapons can you use?”

“Oh! I’m decent with axes, but I’m really best at ranged stuff, like throwing knives, bow and arrows...”

“You use a bow?” 

“Ah, well, they aren’t very stealthy, so I only really use it for self-defense traveling between towns. My aim is decent, though I could definitely use some practice.” He’d found that bandits were more likely to leave him be if they knew that he could out-range them.

“That’s good. We could use more ranged fighters.” Jeralt stared at him another few moments, then sighed. “Look, kid, you seem competent enough. But the thing is, I don’t really trust you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that you didn’t leave Byleth to die, but we both know that’s just because you owed her a debt.”

“What? No, that’s… I…” 

“Really? You really expect me to believe that you still would have saved her if she  _ hadn’t saved you first? _ ”

The question wasn’t unexpected, but it still hit Ashe like a brick because he suddenly realized that he  _ didn’t know _ . Sure, he’d like to think he would’ve helped her either way, but he wasn’t  _ certain _ . There’d been those moments of hesitation, when he’d seriously considered just walking away… But that was different, he’d thought she could still walk at that point! (Yet he hadn’t really believed it, had he, because he hadn’t wanted to turn back around, because he knew what he saw would prove him wrong, he  _ knew… _ ) And while he had turned around in the end, and gone back, how much of that decision was influenced by her earlier actions? He couldn’t pretend it hadn’t mattered in the moment; after all, he’d only gone into the alley in the first place because he was scared of her. If he hadn’t been given a reason to view her as an ally...

“You may be right,” he found himself admitting softly. “Under different circumstances, I might have just left.” 

Silence.

Well, this interview had somehow gone  _ even worse _ than he’d expected it to. What an achievement. Ashe stood to leave. 

“Hold on.” Jeralt held up a hand. “Sit back down. We’re not done here yet.” 

Oh, great, so they were going to arrest him after all. The day had come full circle.

Ashe sat back down.

“Like I said, I don’t trust you. But apparently Byleth does, and apparently she cares enough to offer you this chance. Unless she’s just figured out how to pretend to care, but hell, even that’s better than nothing. Besides, I doubt you could do much damage even if you  _ did _ turn on us.” Wow, what a vote of confidence. “So if you’re serious about wanting to join…” Wait,  _ what? _ Ashe wondered if they’d been having the same conversation, because it sounded like Jeralt was actually hiring him. 

...maybe that flask  _ was _ full of liquor. 

Honestly, this was seeming like a progressively worse idea as time went on, but… it was worth a shot, right? The life of a mercenary was probably risky, but it couldn’t be any worse than that of a criminal. At the very least, it was less likely to end in a jail cell. And while he knew mercenaries fought for whoever hired them, he had hopes that at least some of the time he could be on the side of righteousness for once. To get through a day without adding to his already overwhelming mound of guilt.

And even more than all that… “Yes. Of course I’m serious. I… I want my siblings to be able to be proud of their older brother.” While they rarely voiced it aloud, he knew how much it hurt both of them to know their education was paid for with stolen goods. Cinder had gone so far as to yell at him the last time he’d visited, to accuse him of ‘throwing his life away’ for them. (He hadn’t really had any counter arguments for that. The conversation had ended with all three of them crying.) They would want him to take this opportunity.

Jeralt nodded. “Alright, then.” He pulled out a pen and an official-looking paper. “Standard mercenary contract. You travel with the troop and agree to help with any mission we’re hired for. Basic food and lodging is covered.” His voice slid into the dull monotone of someone who’s given a speech far too many times. “Beyond that, you’ll be paid a cut of any money we earn. Bonuses will be awarded if I feel like it. Give notice before you quit, don’t stab anyone on the way out. Sign here.”

Ashe eyed the paper uncertainly. He’d never formally learned how to read, but he could at least recognize a few common words. But nothing looked horribly amiss, and besides, it wouldn’t be the first contract he’d signed without reading it. He took the pen and scrawled an approximation of his name.

“Okay then, Ashe.” The corner of Jeralt’s mouth quirked up into a half-smile. “Welcome to the team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of John Mulaney, "You ever have those days where you're like, 'This might as well happen, adult life is already so goddamn weird'?"
> 
> 10,000 words in! Woo!


	6. On the Subjectivity of Debts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sothis tells a story, Ashe wins a contest, and Byleth learns a new skill

Two days after that fateful guard shift, Byleth found herself back at the castle. Though, thankfully, not in that accursed hallway. 

She stood alone on the ramparts, feeling the air grow colder and watching the sun dip below the horizon.

Following that nearly-disastrous tailing mission, things had been surprisingly calm. Heck, the worst thing that had happened to her was Jeralt’s lecture, and even that was more confusing than stressful. As Sothis had observed, he seemed undecided about whether to admonish her for her recklessness or praise her for taking the initiative to help someone. The resulting speech was therefore a bit of a mess, full of verbal backpedaling and contradicting points and made worse by the fact that he was clearly not sober. She wondered how his talk with Ashe had gone, for him to be this noticeably intoxicated by the end. 

Whatever had been said, it apparently hadn’t been enough to scare him off, since he’d joined the troop that very day. She hadn’t talked to him since then; this was partly because she’d been stuck in the medical ward for some time, and partly because she was garbage at talking to people. Besides, it seemed like the other mercenaries had warmed up to him remarkably quickly, and they probably made for better conversational partners than she did. Before heading to the ramparts, she’d overheard them inviting him to the traditional tavern trip that marked the last night in a location. Theoretically everyone was invited, though she herself had never received a formal notice.

The sun had fully set now, but its glow could still be seen, lighting up the lower half of the sky.

Byleth could barely remember anything from the pre-Sothis period of her life; she’d just sort of woke up with a set of skills and a reputation. Not for the first time, Byleth wondered what the hell she’d done in the past that made her fellow mercenaries less friendly towards her than they were towards a former criminal. She wasn’t quite complaining, since a lack of personal attachments made her job easier in the long run; she was just... curious. 

Byleth half expected Sothis to try and call her on that, but she was being remarkably silent. Probably asleep, then, which was inconvenient, since the sky had finally darkened completely.

_ Hey, Sothis, wake up _ . No response.  **_SOTHIS!_ **

_ Ughhhhh, what is it now- Oh! _

Byleth knew Sothis was seeing what she saw, gazing over the castle ramparts. The night was clear, it was a new moon, and they were above the treeline. The lights from the city below them paled in comparison to the multitude of stars blanketing the sky overhead. She could even make out the faint puddles of color that Sothis had called galaxies.

Byleth didn’t know much about Sothis, mainly because Sothis didn’t know much about herself. But one thing they both knew was how much Sothis loved the stars. She didn’t recall much about her past, but sometimes she’d vaguely recognize locations they visited, just enough to know that they looked… different from how she’d seen them. It agitated her to no end, not quite knowing what was different, not quite knowing how it was supposed to look. Hence her love of the night sky; it was the only thing that was exactly as she remembered it. And remember it she did; she could recall the names and stories of seemingly every star and constellation. 

_ Gemini is bright tonight,  _ Sothis observed after a few minutes.  _ See that tall spire on the horizon? Follow it up to the two bright stars. They’re pretty close together, on a kind of diagonal. _

Byleth found it with little issue; the stars really were clear tonight.  _ Does that one have a story? _

_ I think so.  _ Sothis was silent for a moment.  _ Ah, I remember. The two stars are Castor and Pollux. They were brothers, but… Castor was born mortal, and Pollux was immortal. He was destined to become a god. _

Another pause. Byleth waited patiently, listening to the muted sounds drifting up from the city below.

_ But then Castor fell in battle, and his soul was sent to the afterlife. Pollux was given the option to give up half of his immortality to save his brother. They would have to take turns each day, one in the afterlife while the other lived among the gods. And though neither would not truly be dead, they wouldn’t see each other… Of course, Pollux agreed, because it couldn’t bear to let his brother die, even if they would never meet again.  _

Byleth stared up at the pair of stars.

_ Some stories say that they were turned into those stars instead. So they wouldn’t have to be apart for eternity. _

The two were silent for some time, after that. 

_ Hey, Sothis, are you immortal? _

_...perhaps? I must be, I think, to know so much…  _

Hm. Byleth couldn’t help but wonder if Sothis would do such a thing for her.

The reply was whispered, so quiet she almost missed it.

_ Of course I would. _

And there was really nothing to say after that, so they returned to stargazing in a companionable silence. After what might have been minutes, or hours, Sothis piped up again.

_ You know, in those ancient stories, they’d pay tribute to immortal beings through libations. Great idea, that. Would love to see it practiced in the modern era. _

And if Byleth huffed out a tiny laugh, well, no one was around to see.

=====================

Byleth had never been formally invited to a tavern trip, but that never stopped her from attending.

Tonight she arrived rather late to the festivities. The mercenaries were already spread through the tables at the tavern, celebrating the completion of a mission and tomorrow’s impending trip to Fhirdiad. At the sound of the door, several looked over to spot the new arrival; upon seeing Byleth, they simply returned to their drinks.

She soon spotted Ashe. He was standing near the bar, engaged in a game of darts with a blond mercenary whose name she should probably remember. A group of spectators had gathered to watch the game, several of whom turned at the sound of the door.

“Oh, great, the demon’s here,” one had muttered as she entered the building. That was a bit rude; it wasn’t like she was planning to pick a fight or something. The blond didn’t even react, too focused on lining up his next throw, but Ashe glanced over. Noticing Byleth, he treated her to a smile and cheerful wave before going back to the game.  _ He seems happy to see you, _ Sothis remarked, sounding as surprised as Byleth felt.

She hovered near the entrance for a moment in indecision. She usually lurked in the corner at these events, but Ashe  _ had _ waved to her… Would it be rude to ignore him? After some consideration, Byleth took a seat at the corner of the bar, where she could watch the developing darts match without sitting too close to the crowd of spectators. All the same, she got a few odd looks; this was probably the closest she’d gotten to socializing, after all.

Byleth ordered a drink and settled in to watch the remainder of the game. While she wasn’t terribly familiar with darts, she was pretty sure Ashe was winning. He certainly seemed to be getting more bullseyes than his opponent, who was muttering colorful swear words. She also noticed that whenever Ashe made a bad throw (bad being relative, they were all pretty close to the center) he’d squint at the dart and tilt his head a bit, as if perplexed that it had missed; she wondered if this was a regular habit, or if he’d been drinking prior to the game.

Eventually, the blond took his final throw, landing it directly in the bullseye with a whoop of triumph. Ashe reached for his last dart… and frowned when he couldn’t find it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I just… it was right here…” he was staring, perplexed, at the table where the darts had been lined up, brow furrowed in confusion. Ah, definitely drunk then.

“Oh, you haven’t lost the dart, have you?” The mercenary asked with mock concern. Some of the spectators snickered. Then, after another moment: “If you can’t make your last throw, you lose by default, I’m afraid.”   
  
Ashe narrowed his eyes at the man, presumably connecting the dots and figuring out what had happened to the final dart. In one fluid motion, he snatched a steak knife from a nearby table and flung it at the dartboard. The knife sliced through the air, cleaving the dart in half to bury itself in the exact center of the board with a heavy *thunk*.

Beside him, the blond’s jaw dropped. There was a tense, shocked silence. Then the man burst out laughing, nearby mercenaries hesitantly joining in. He threw an arm around Ashe’s shoulders and ruffled his hair playfully.

“Good game, man. Really showed me, eh? I wouldn’t want to get on  _ your _ bad side!”

Ashe laughed along with them. “Just don’t cheat again and we’re good! Though, I seem to recall that you owe me another drink now.”

“That I do, that I do. Get something strong so I can win the next one, okay?”

“No promises!” Ashe chirped cheerfully back at him before heading over to the bar. He dropped into the seat next to Byleth with a grin. 

She nodded to him. “Congratulations.” 

His smile widened. “Thank you!” 

“You’re quite good at darts.” Well, as far as she could tell without knowing the rules of the game.

“Oh, ah, not really.” He fidgeted a bit, seeming embarrassed. “Jesse’s just kinda shit at it, honestly.” He perked up. “But I am good at throwing knives! ...though maybe I shouldn’t brag about that…” 

He deflated for a moment, before cheering right back up. “Anyways! I wanted to buy you a drink. As thanks for everything.”

  
“You don’t have to do that,” Byleth responded automatically.  _ What are you doing?!!! _ Sothis whined. _ Get! That! Free! Booze! _ Oh, right. They’d figured out a while back that any alcohol Byleth drank would affect them both, and apparently Sothis was a lightweight.  _ Of course I’m lightweight! I float, bitch!  _

“I want to, though. You saved my life and got me a job, it’s the least I can do.”  _ Free! Booze! Free! Booze! Free! Booze!  _

“Alright,” Byleth acquiesced, speaking as much to Sothis as to Ashe. In her head, Sothis whooped with joy.

The bartender made her way over, and Ashe ordered. “You seem to be in a good mood today,” Byleth observed as the drinks were poured. 

Ashe laughed lightly. “Is that so surprising? No one’s tried to kill me, so it’s already better than yesterday. Plus I’m undefeated at darts! Well, so far, I guess. Oh! And also,” here he leaned in conspiratorially, and motioned her to do the same. “I’m a bit drunk” he stage-whispered behind his hand, as though sharing a big secret. He kept up his serious expression for all of about two seconds before collapsing onto the bar in a fit of giggles. It gave her a strangely warm feeling, and she felt some of the muscles in her face grow a bit sore from trying not to smile.

She was shaken from her thoughts by the muffled *clunk* as two glasses were placed onto the bar. Ashe sat back up to thank the bartender before lifting his glass.

He rotated in his seat to face her. “What’s this one to?” 

Byleth stared blankly and tried to parse the words into something meaningful.

“What are we toasting?” he clarified. Ah, ok. Her mind whirled; it was hard to think of something good on the spot, but she didn’t want to spend too long awkwardly waiting.

“To... not being dead?” She just said the first thing to come to mind. 

“Sure, I’ll drink to that. To not being dead!” He clinked their glasses together, and both took a drink.

There was a short silence, which was slowly extending into the realm of ‘uncomfortable’.  _ Girl, if you don’t want silence you gotta talk. _ Okay. Right. Talking.

“So, Ashe…”

“Yes?” He glanced up. She didn’t have a plan of where to go from here. Potential topics flitted across her subconscious. 

“The other mercenaries… are they... are you getting along with them?” Gods, that was terrible.  _ Ugh. I can’t tell if you’re too drunk for this, or too sober.  _ Probably too sober, since she was barely feeling the first drink. She chugged a bit to fix the problem, or at least make it more bearable.

Luckily, Ashe was not too sober to take the awkward conversational bait. “I’ve only met a few properly, but they seem nice! I’ve always liked working in a team, though it’s not that common for… well, that is…” he faltered for a minute, then brightened again. “Oh! You might like this story. So there was this one group I used to work with sometimes, and we went drinking after a job, and this guy Balthus - real big guy, kinda dumb - don’t tell him I said that - although, actually, he might not care, I think Yuri insults him a lot - but maybe that’s different…” he trailed off, and squinted into his glass.

“You all went drinking,” Byleth prompted. 

“Right! Yeah! Okay! So Balthus drank too much and there was this poster in the tavern, and we told him that it was enchanted to hit people when they weren’t looking, right? So for the rest of the night…” Ashe gesticulated wildly as he told the story, while Byleth listened intently and sipped the remainder of her drink. His face was a bit flushed from the alcohol, she noticed, the reddish glow serving to highlight the freckles dotting his nose and cheeks. It gave her that warm feeling again-

_ It means you think he’s cute, dumbass. _

What?

_ You heard me you… you… ...human. _

…

_...I dunno. Can I have another drink? _

Eh, why not. It wasn’t as if Sothis could do anything stupid, and Byleth herself was barely buzzed. She made eye contact with the bartender and signaled for a refill.

“-so there was this tree- ah, sorry, I’m rambling.” He broke off sheepishly, pushing his bangs out of his face in a nervous tick. Shit, it seemed that he’d mistaken her action for disinterest in the story.

“I was listening.”

“No, that’s okay, I understand. Um, do you have a story  _ you _ want to tell?” he offered.

“I want to hear how yours ends.” It was true, but even more than that she didn’t want to have to think of something on the spot. Listening had always come easier than talking.

“Well, okay, but… you’ll tell me if I’m talking too much, right?” He stared into the nearly empty glass, fidgeting with the handle, brows furrowed in concern.

“Of course.”

“...alright. Um, where was I?”

“There was a tr-”

“Ah! Yes! The tree! Okay, so we’re on the second floor, and there’s this tree outside the window, but it’s a few feet away, right? So Balthus says he thinks he could climb down it but we’re not really paying attention. And then I hear this yell, and I look over and Balthus is already halfway out the window, and Yuri’s trying to pull him back in but he doesn’t have enough leverage...”

Byleth is halfway through her drink and Ashe’s story seems to be drawing to a close when they are interrupted by the return of the blond darts player.

“ASHE! Yo, Ashe, my man-”

“I’m kinda busy right now, Jesse,” he called over his shoulder. “-so, anyways, there’s broken glass everywhere-”

“Listen, bud,” the blond - Jesse, apparently - just raised his voice and spoke right over him. “I’ve had an idea for our rematch. To even the odds.”

Ashe groaned and rotated to face him. “For the last time, I am  **not** challenging Jeralt to a drink off. He’s not even here!” Byleth glanced around, noting his absence for the first time. Huh.   
  
“No no no no no, I’ve got a  **better** idea. We’re gonna play teams so my buddy Deen here-” he went to throw an arm around a dark-haired man beside him, who dodged out of the way with a scowl, “-can carry my sorry ass to victory.” 

“He can certainly try,” Ashe remarked in a tone somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. He turned to Byleth. “I can finish the story some other time, I guess. Wanna be on my team?”

“...I don’t know how to play,” she admitted.

“That’s fine, I can teach you! It’ll be fun.” And really, who could say no to that smile? Apparently not Byleth.

“Alright.” She could hear Sothis drunkenly laughing at her, which was rude. The immortal pain-in-the-ass responded by making a * _ whhpsh*  _ noise, then cackled even harder. Absolutely insufferable. Perhaps Byleth shouldn’t drink ever again. 

_ *gasp* You wouldn’t dare! _

Ignoring her, Byleth followed the others to the dartboard. 

A few rounds in, Byleth felt she had finally gotten a grasp on all the rules. She turned out to be passable at darts, though some of her early shots had missed the board entirely. (“That’s okay, it’s kind of you to try and give Jesse a fair chance!” “Yeah, yeah, fuck you too.”) Jesse was playing a much worse game than he had earlier, but Deen was doing pretty well, and that last drink wasn’t doing any favors to Ashe’s aim. All in all, the match was pretty close.

Ashe was lining up his final set of throws, Jesse ineffectively heckling him from his seat on the sidelines to try and mess up his game.  _ To try and ‘throw’ him off, haha, geddit?  _ Okay, yeah, Sothis had had too much.  _ Rude! I am  _ **_thriving_ ** _.  _

Ashe was lining up his last throw now, and Jesse’s inane blather had stopped. Hmm. She looked over to see his teammate (dammit, she’d forgotten his name already) whispering something, then narrowing his eyes in concentration.  _ That’s sus as fuuuuuck, bruh.  _

Sure enough, just as Ashe was releasing the dart-

“So. Ashe. How many people have you killed?”

_ That _ struck a nerve. He let out a strangled yelp of surprise, and the dart barely hit the board. He whirled around to face the man, who looked slightly smug. Jesse cheered and started setting up for his turn.

“I- You can’t just-” 

“Relax. We’re mercenaries. No one cares.” His tone was more flat than reassuring. 

“R-right, yeah. Okay.” He sat back down next to Byleth, looking miserable. 

“...does death bother you that much?” Byleth asked, a bit concerned. Perhaps she’d pushed him into the wrong career path. 

He shook his head. “No, it’s more to do with-” he cut himself off, then sighed. “...nevermind. Here, let’s see if Jesse manages to win it.” He forced a smile and turned back to the game.

In what could perhaps be attributed to karma, Jesse did not get a high enough score to guarantee a victory, so it was time for Byleth’s final turn. 

Byleth lined up her throws carefully, glancing to the side to see if the enemy team was plotting anything. Thus far they hadn’t had the courage to heckle her, but this  _ was  _ the final round. Her first throw was decent, but her second was lacking a bit. Right. Her last throw would have to be good. 

“You’ve got this!” Ashe called encouragingly. Meanwhile, Jesse and his friend seemed to be having an urgent argument.  _ Yeah! Kick their asses! _

She lined up the throw; deep breath; and…

*THUNK*

They all stared for a moment. It wasn’t a bullseye, but it was in the center circle, which should be enough points to win. 

“You did it!” Ashe cried happily, leaping up from his seat.

“Of course,” she replied with a nod. She was glad to see that their victory had cheered him back up.

“Yeah, okay, you guys deserved that. Good game and all that.” Jesse wandered over to reluctantly congratulate them. “Here, Deen, get them the drinks we owe?”

“You  **will** pay me back.” Deen responded gruffly, walking to the bar nonetheless. Jesse shook his head, and she swore he muttered ‘jackass’ under his breath.  _ Yo, byleth, maybe that’s your problem, you gotta be more of an asshole. _

But arguing with Sothis would have to wait, because Ashe was talking to her again.

“You got pretty good by the end, perhaps soon you’ll be even better than I am! We should compete sometime.”

“You don’t mean that,” Byleth observed. “You just want more free drinks.”

He laughed lightly. “Hey, it’s worked before, can’t blame me for trying.”

Deen tactlessly interrupted the conversation to hand over the drinks. Recalling their earlier toast, Byleth raised her glass. “So, what’s this one to?” Probably to winning the match, she’d guess.

Ashe gazed thoughtfully at her for a minute before raising his. “...to new friends?” He asked with a hopeful smile. Friends, huh? Byleth nodded without hesitation. 

“To new friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Byleth, I know nothing about darts. It seems like there are a ton of different rulesets, so just pretend this is the Kingdom variant? 
> 
> Greek mythology? In MY fire emblem three houses fanfiction? It's more likely than you think. There's a lot of variations on that myth, so I went with the most thematically-fitting details.
> 
> Those snippets of Ashe's story are all based on real shenanigans (everyone involved was fine). Please do remember to drink responsibly and not jump out of any windows, no matter how close the tree is.


	7. On the Subjectivity of Interest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth makes a joke, Jeralt meets an old friend, Ashe voices some concerns, and Sothis makes a discovery.

Sothis was awakened the next morning, as usual, by a short burst of emotion from Byleth. And while there were many disadvantages to being incorporeal, at least it meant she didn’t get hangovers.

_ What’s going on? _ She asked with a bit of a yawn. (Why she was compelled to yawn despite having no physical body was beyond her, but it was somehow one of the least pressing questions about her own existence.)

_ We’re not going to Fhirdiad anymore.  _ She was glad Byleth was consciously replying; reading into her thoughts to find a reaction was always a chore and felt a bit invasive. Strange that their destination had changed, though. With a bit more effort, she tuned into the surrounding world. 

Jeralt was standing on the steps of the guardhouse, speaking to the disgruntled assembly of mercenaries.

“Look. House Gatier’s having issues with Sreng again. They’re paying a generous sum for anyone willing to help secure the border. The Margrave sent for us, specifically, based on reputation, and we’ll get a bonus if we haul ass up there instead of, say, detouring to the capital for the hell of it.”

“Ya should’a told us-”

“I only just found out this morning.”  _ That’s a load, _ thought Byleth.  _ Bet you anything he was just waiting until they were too hungover to argue. _

_ An interesting strategy.  _ Though apparently not an effective one, as some of the mercenaries were yelling again. Oh nooooo, they had to get dragged along by someone else to places they didn’t really want to visit? The  _ horror _ . Really, if Sothis could put up with it for the last five years, they could deal with it for a month or two.

Jeralt raised his voice. “If anyone would like to go to Fhirdiad instead, you are welcome to quit. The rest of us will be heading for Gatier on the hour. Figure your shit out and quit whining.” Eloquent as always, that one. 

Though, returning to the main issue…  _ It is curious that this Margrave fellow would go to so much effort,  _ Sothis mused. _ Are there not mercenaries up North he could hire for cheaper?  _

_ Damned if I know. _ Rude. Perhaps someday she’d explain the concept of a ‘rhetorical question’ to her idiotic flesh anchor. But that sounded like a lot of effort, and she just didn’t have the energy right now.

_ Whatever. I’m going back to sleep, wake me if anything interesting happens. _

===========================

When Sothis awoke again, they were on the road. Byleth was walking at the front of the formation beside Jeralt, as usual. 

In complete silence. As usual.

_ Did I miss anything? _

_ Oh, good, you’re up. I was getting bored. _

Sothis rolled her eyes, not that Byleth could see it. Honestly, why did she even bother? 

_ You could always talk to your father, you know. If you’re really so terribly bored. _

_ He’ll think something’s wrong if I start up the small talk. He always does.  _ Sothis could feel her subtle frustration. Apparently spending over two decades as an emotionless husk would really condition people’s expectations. Byleth probably wouldn’t have been an extrovert regardless, but it seeing her be denied the possibility was… upsetting.

_ He wouldn’t think that if you did it more consistently,  _ Sothis argued. Then, to up the ante:  _ You’ll have to talk to him if you want entertainment right now. I’m ignoring you until you do. _

Byleth’s thoughts devolved into curses pretty quickly after that, once she realized Sothis was serious. Honestly, it was a bit unfair to her that the mind reading only went one way. It was certainly convenient for Sothis, though.

Stubborn fool that she was, it took Byleth almost an hour to finally concede. It then took the rest of the hour for her to settle on a conversation starter, which was honestly faster than Sothis had anticipated. Perhaps her charge was finally learning.

“I noticed you missed the tavern trip.” And hey, that was a pretty good topic! Well done Byleth!   
  


Jeralt turned, surprise and disbelief evident on his face. 

“Well, yeah. I was busy negotiating with the Margrave’s messenger. They’ve had trouble with Sreng on and off for ages, this shouldn't be anything too complicated.” 

Silence.

“...so I take it you went to the tavern, then? How was that?” 

“It was fun. I won a darts game.” Oh  _ did _ she now? 

_ That’s strange, I didn’t take you for a glory-stealing bastard _ Sothis admonished.

“... **we** won a darts game,” Byleth amended.

“You… played darts?” Jeralt looked really confused now. “Wait, who is this ‘we’...”

“Ashe and I, we beat ...Jesse and, uh…” She paused, trying to remember the man’s name. 

_ Hey, Sothis, do you remember- _

_ No. _

_...helpful as ever, Sothis. _

“...a spiky dark haired guy?”

Jeralt stared into the distance. “Huh.”

More silence.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, did  _ anyone _ in this family know how to maintain a conversation? She’d always given Byleth the benefit of the doubt and assumed that her awkwardness was due to the whole no-thoughts-no-memories period of her life, but perhaps it had been hereditary all along.

“...I didn’t know you liked darts.” 

She shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Another silence.

“Well, I’m glad you had fun.” And just like that, the talk was over. 

_ I told you he’d be weird about it.  _ The thought was supposed to be smug, but Sothis could feel the quiet sadness behind Byleth’s words. 

_ I’m sorry, _ she replied. She’d been hoping to go back to sleep, but...  _ I’ll keep you company for a little while. _

===========================

The beginning of the journey northward was, in Sothis’ personal opinion, terribly dull, and thus she endeavored to sleep through as much of it as possible. She felt a bit guilty for leaving Byleth to suffer the boredom alone, but not  _ quite _ guilty enough to change her behavior. After all, she experienced boredom as well, and could only watch the endless daytime marches for so long before she began to feel her sanity slipping away.

She’d generally wake up in the evening to check in and make Byleth show her the day’s progress on a map. The latter activity was to reassure herself that yes, they would eventually reach their destination and things would get interesting again.  _ You’re one to complain,  _ Byleth admonished her each time. _ You don’t even have to be awake for it.  _

Generally, the camp was swarming with activity when she awoke, mercenaries pitching tents and heating rations by the campfires. But today the site seemed rather empty, with just a few people scattered about.

_ Where is everyone? _

_ Most of them went into the town.  _ She turned to see a reasonably large settlement just a bit further down the road. Their campsites tended to be in the middle of nowhere, so it made sense that they were taking the opportunity to restock. Seemed a bit late for the markets, though.

_ Ah. Tavern, I presume?  _

_ Brothel. _

_ Oh. I see.  _ She didn’t, really. Humans made no sense sometimes.

Still, that did explain why Byleth had stayed behind in the camp. In her own words, ‘ _ Interacting with people is stressful. Why would I pay money to do that?’  _ (The first time the issue had come up, Sothis had given her The Talk just in case she’d forgotten it during the missing years. It had been a very awkward day for everyone involved.) All the same, Sothis had been perfecting her Ignoring Byleth For An Extended Period skills in case she changed her mind one day and needed some privacy.

But today was not that day, and Byleth instead appeared to be taking inventory of the supply wagons. 

_...how’s it going?  _ She barely cared, but after ignoring her all day it was only fair to ask.

_ We’re low on beets. But we have twice as many onions as we thought we did. _ Riveting. Byleth was never terribly expressive, but somehow her tone was even more monotone than usual.

_ We’re getting close to Sreng though, right? Right? _

_ Not really, no. _

_ Aaaaauuuuuughhhhhhhhhh.  _

_ There, there.  _ Still monotone.  _ I’m nearly done. _

_...will something interesting happen then? _

_ Probably not. _

To everyone’s relief, she was incorrect. The two returned to the center of the camp to find Ashe seated by the campfire, flipping through the pages of a large book. Studying magic, perhaps? He hadn’t mentioned any magical ability, though she supposed no one had asked.

_ I wonder what he’s reading,  _ Byleth mused, echoing Sothis’ own pondering.

_ You  _ **_could_ ** _ just ask him.  _

_ …I don’t want to bother him, though. He looks busy.  _

This was absurd.  _ Just. Talk. To. Him.  _

_ What am I supposed to say- _

_ It barely matters! Just comment on the situation or something, I don’t know! Small talk!  _

_ Okay, okay, I’m going, I’m doing it. _

“Decided not to head to town, huh?” Oh, good, she’d chosen the most awkward possible conversation starter. Really, Sothis should’ve expected this. One small upside: even if this crashed and burned, it would still be entertaining.

He jumped a bit, then smiled when he recognized her. “Oh! Hey, Byleth.” He set the book down carefully. “Yeah, I don’t really have any business in town, so I figured I’d just stay here.” Good, now the conversation could steer away from the awkward-

“They weren’t really going for business… did they not tell you-” Dammit Byleth.

**_Why_ ** _ are you still  _ **_talking_ ** _ about this?!  _ Sothis cried. The secondhand embarrassment was creeping in.

_ But what if they didn’t tell him? _ Byleth protested. _ I don't want him to feel excluded!  _ Ok, she did have a point.

“N-no they did! I know! I just… it seems like a waste of money, you know?” Cool, now that was settled and the conversation could move away from-

Byleth nodded. “Makes sense. Hands are free.” 

Holy shit.

_ WHAT ARE YOU  _ **_DOING_ ** _?! Why would you  _ **_SAY_ ** _ that… _

_ I-I thought it was funny! _

Sothis said nothing, hoping her silence would convey her disapproval.

_ The other mercenaries make jokes like that all the time! _

_. . . _

_ Y-you said to comment on the situation…  _

Oh for fuck’s sake.  _ I meant the  _ **_book_ ** _ , or the  _ **_journey_ ** _ , or LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE! _

_...oh. _

“...so what are you reading, there?” Reaaaal smooth, Byleth.

It seemed to take Ashe a moment to recover from the tonal whiplash of the non sequitur. “Oh! It’s, um…” He lifted the book to show her. ‘Loog and the Maiden of Wind,’ declared the title, with an illustration below of a knight fighting some kind of serpent. The cover appeared rather old, and a bit worn at the edges.

“What’s it about?”   
  
“Well, um… I don’t actually know.” he admitted sheepishly. “I can’t read. It’s got a lot of really nice illustrations in it though! Here, let me…” He flipped quickly to a dog-eared page near the center and held it out for her to see. 

A woodcut battle scene stretched across the two pages, depicting a huge demonic beast fighting a contingent of knights. The battle had apparently been going for some time, as the field was strewn with corpses and abandoned weapons. The beast’s armor was cracked and dented, but it fought on, its head raised high to snatch a pegasus from the sky. Near the center, a knight in especially detailed armor was jabbing a spear through the monster’s throat.

“It’s very impressive,” Byleth remarked. Sothis personally agreed. “Looks a bit heavy to be carrying around with you though.”

“Yeah… I mostly keep it for sentimental reasons.” He hesitated a moment before continuing, his tone turning sad. “I got- well, stole this a long time ago. Nearly got caught, too. I was originally planning to sell it after looking through it once, and we really could’ve used the money, but… My siblings were so fond of the pictures, it was honestly the happiest I’d seen them since before our parents died. There was so little joy in our lives, I just didn’t have the heart to take that away from them…”

The fire crackled in the silence.

“...I’m sorry,” Byleth murmured softly. Sothis silently agreed, watching the embers from the campfire float into the starry sky. 

  
“Don’t be. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really.” Ashe shook his head. “I haven’t seen Blaise and Cinder in a while now, so it’s nice to have a reminder of when we were all together. Even if those weren’t happy times.” His lip quirked up into a wry half-smile. “Though, perhaps I should’ve let one of them keep it, since they’re getting the education needed to actually read the damn thing. It’s wasted on me, really.”

Another silence. Then, to Sothis’ surprise, Byleth quietly spoke up.

“I can read it to you, if you’d like.” 

Ashe’s looked up in surprise. “Really? That’d be- I mean, you don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“I want to, though.” She sat down next to him on the log. “You’re my friend. It’s the least I can do.”

He stared for a moment, before breaking into a genuine smile. “Well, if you’re sure, I certainly won’t stop you.” The book was carefully passed to Byleth, who set the book on her lap and opened it to the first page. The text was illuminated, and Ashe peered over her shoulder to view the fanciful lettering and illustrations. She began to read:

“Lo! the Empire’s glory through splendid achievements

The folk-kings’ former fame we have heard of,

How princes displayed then their prowess-in-battle...”

Sothis listened to the gentle cadence of the words and watched the dancing embers within the fire as she slowly drifted to sleep.

===========================

It became a routine, after that. Each evening once the camp was set up, the two would find a spot by the campfire and Byleth would read a bit more of the book. Ashe would listen intently, excitedly pointing out details whenever they reached an illustration. Sothis had to admit that the tale was pretty interesting; she’d been making an effort to wake up for it, although most times she’d quickly fall asleep and need Byleth to summarize what she’d missed. 

On a presumably related note, Sothis had noticed with some relief that Byleth seemed to be getting ever-so-slightly more confident at starting conversations. For one march (with just a bit of prompting from Sothis) she’d moved from her usual position beside Jeralt to go talk to Ashe instead and finally hear the conclusion of the Drunk Balthus story. (Jeralt’s face when Byleth walked away had been priceless. Sothis would treasure that memory for some time.)

  
Small victories aside, the next noteworthy event occurred when they were just a few days away from the rendezvous.

Sothis had been trying to sleep through another march when she was shaken awake by Byleth’s confusion. After asking what was happening and receiving no coherent explanation, she’d tuned into the surrounding world in time to see a wyvern swooping down to land directly in front of Jeralt and Byleth. The impact shook the ground, and they were hit by a burst of wind as the beast flapped its massive wings to regain its balance.  _ What the- _   
  


The wyvern shifted into a sitting position, glancing idly around as its rider stared down at them. “Captain Jeralt. Fancy seeing you here.” Interesting. She’d never heard Jeralt referred to as a captain before.

“Seteth.” Jeralt’s tone was flat and unreadable. So they knew each other, then? Curiouser and curiouser.

“It’s quite inexplicable,” the man continued, “I was under the impression that you were dead. I had heard rumors, of course, of a mercenary leader going by the name of Blade Breaker, but I thought it could not be the same man. And yet… here you are.” The words were polite, but the tone was downright accusatory.

“Yeah, well, these things happen. Why are you  _ here _ , Seteth?”

“Likely the same reason you and your… companions are.” He scanned the assembled mercenaries. Seteth’s eyes paused their scanning, and his eyebrows rose. “I do hope all of them are trustworthy.” Well, that was ominous. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t quite tell where the man was looking.

_ What in Fodlan is going on here?  _ Sothis doubted Byleth knew any more than she did, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

_ I was about to ask you that, actually. _ As expected. Well, they’d be confused together. Camaraderie and all that.

Beside them, Jeralt narrowed his eyes. “Do you know something I don’t, Seteth?”

“I know many things you don’t,” he snapped. Dodging the question, huh… 

“Whatever. We’re heading to the Sreng border, if you must know.”

“As previously implied, I am heading there as well. We need to determine if the threat is sufficient to require the Church’s aid.” 

“By ‘Church’s aid’, I hope you mean the knights of Seiros and not the students.” 

Seteth had the decency to look embarrassed. “O-of course. After the, ah, incident, it was decided that mock battles are sufficient for the students’ education.” 

‘The Incident’ had happened shortly after Sothis had started communicating with Byleth. She didn’t have all the details about what went down, but she’d heard plenty of speculation through Byleth. It would’ve been hard not to, the entire continent had been in an uproar. Reportedly, the heirs of all three countries had nearly died due to the Church’s negligence, which caused several houses of the Alliance to cut funding to the Church, along with the entire Adrestrian Empire.

Jeralt just grunted in acknowledgement. “What the hell’s going down with Sreng that the Margrave asked for the church’s assistance? He’s already got a private army, Kingdom support, mercenaries…” 

“I do not yet know. That is why I am going there.” Seteth spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child. 

_ Are you two related?  _ Byleth asked out of the blue.

_ What? _

_ I mean, green hair, needlessly condescending… You see the resemblance, right? _

_ Yeah, yeah, very funny.  _ Though the man  _ did _ seem familiar, oddly enough...

“Yeah ok I get it,” Jeralt growled, apparently as unimpressed by the man’s attitude as Byleth. “Did you stop by just to insult me?”

Seteth merely scoffed. “You disappeared in the middle of a fire with Sitri’s daughter, and evaded detection for over two decades. Forgive me for my curiosity.” He squinted at Byleth. “...actually...”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Seteth?” Jeralt interrupted pointedly.

Seteth raised his eyebrows. “Well, I am relieved to know she is alive, though I do believe you owe the Archbishop an explanation. And, I suspect, an apology.”

“I don’t owe Rhea jack shit.” 

Seteth’s jaw dropped in shock at this declaration. Then he scowled. “I can see now that this was a waste of time. I will leave you to it. Goodbye, Jeralt.” He straightened up, giving the reins a tug. His wyvern stood and stretched its wings, readying itself for flight.

Jeralt swore under his breath. “WAIT! Seteth!” 

“Hmm?” He paused.

“Don’t tell Rhea that Byleth is alive. Please.”

Seteth stared at him a moment, then sighed. “I cannot pretend to understand what is happening here, but… fine. If she does not ask, I will not bring it up.” Then, quieter: “Goddess knows she’s dealing with enough right now.” 

With a final glance at Byleth, he snapped the reins and his wyvern took off into the sky, the draft from its ascent buffeting the surrounding mercenaries. Jeralt waited for the wyvern to vanish into the distance before giving the command to keep moving.

“What was that about?” Byleth asked Jeralt as they resumed the journey.

He just shook his head in response. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Don’t worry about it, huh? Easier said than done, in Sothis’ opinion. How did Jeralt know this ‘Seteth’ person? Why was he apparently on a first-name basis with the archbishop? Why did any of them care about Byleth? 

It was all terribly confusing, but seeing as no answers were forthcoming, it was time for another nap.

===========================

“So, what did that wyvern rider want?”

Byleth glanced up from where she was stoking the fire. Ashe was standing nearby, idly picking at a small nick in the leather cover of his book. Sothis noted that he looked a bit concerned, though that was understandable. As Byleth had been telling Sothis before the interruption, the other mercenaries had been speculating all day on what Jeralt and the rider had discussed. He had, characteristically, explained nothing to anyone. It was terribly frustrating; she wished she had a physical form so she could give the man a talking to.

“I don’t really know,” Byleth admitted. “I guess he knows Jeralt from somewhere.” She prodded the logs with a heavy branch, watching the flames flare up. Apparently satisfied, she moved backwards a bit to sit in the grass surrounding the makeshift fire pit. 

“Jeralt didn’t look too thrilled to see him,” Ashe noted as he took a seat beside her.

“He wasn’t. They both seemed pretty mad about it.”

“That’s… a bit concerning.”

Byleth just shrugged. “It’ll be fine,” she declared. Privately, Sothis rolled her eyes.

He laughed a little at that. “I suppose I should be more worried about the war we’re walking into.”

“That’ll be fine, too. Probably.” She held out her hands. 

“‘Probably’?” he echoed, shaking his head with a disbelieving smile as he obligingly passed over the book. 

“What are you even worried about? You’re an archer, you won’t be on the front lines.”

“But my friends will be!”

“...oh.” Ah. It seemed that this was not an angle Byleth had considered.

“...I’m honestly a bit scared,” he admitted. “I’m not used to large group battles like this, usually I travel alone… What if I miss an important shot, and someone dies for it?”

“If  _ I _ die, it’ll be my own stupid fault, I promise.” Ohhhh this was bad. Byleth was not good at comforting people.

“Please don’t,” he replied weakly.

“I will endeavor not to.” Then, more seriously: “Don’t beat yourself up over things that haven’t happened yet. It doesn’t help.” Wow, that was almost wise.

“I’ll… endeavor not to, as you said.”

She just nodded, opening the book to the page marked with the leaf they’d been using as a bookmark. They’d made significant progress, Sothis noted; they seemed to be nearly halfway through the lengthy story.

It seemed like Ashe had noticed the same thing. “Hey, um… it’s okay if you don’t want to read this every day, I understand if you’ve got other stuff to do.”

Sothis could feel Byleth’s sudden burst of surprise and ...disappointment? Iiiiiinteresting.

“Do… do you not want to-”

“No! I mean, I really enjoy listening, I just feel kinda bad for monopolizing your time. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do…”

“I don’t.” And Sothis could confirm: she really didn’t.

He barked out an involuntary laugh. “Alright, then. Just, let me know if you ever don’t have time, okay? I won’t be offended, I promise.”

“I always have time for you,” Byleth responded matter-of-factly, scanning down the page to find where they’d left off. And because she was staring down at the book, she completely missed how her offhanded statement had made Ashe blush a bright red. Sothis noticed, though. Veeeeery interesting. 

_ What are you snickering about?  _ Huh, had she been snickering? Well, no matter.

  
_ Oh, nothing much  _ Sothis lied.  _ You’ll figure it out eventually. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this fic has a PLOT:
> 
> P ossibly contrived  
> L ist  
> O f excuses to bring my favorite characters  
> T ogether
> 
> I'll tag the new characters as they appear, but I'm sure you can guess who we'll be meeting in the next few chapters...
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who recognizes what famous piece of literature the book's introduction is based on! 
> 
> (This month might get busy for me, so updates may slow down. Or maybe not. Nothing is certain in 2020.)


	8. On the Subjectivity of Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeralt makes a miscalculation, Ashe makes a contribution, and Byleth makes a friend.

Jeralt was, perhaps understandably, quite confused.

Lately, Byleth had been acting… strange, to say the least. Well, strange by her standards. She was starting conversations. She was responding with full sentences instead of nods. She… well, she wasn’t emoting, but still! This level of interaction from her was unprecedented. He hadn’t seen her act this human since… ever. 

He wanted to be happy about it. And he was, to an extent. But Jeralt hadn’t survived this long without regarding everything with a healthy dose of suspicion, and these circumstances were nothing if not suspicious. Some random thief gets betrayed by an assassin, and suddenly she  _ cares?  _ About  _ other people?!! _ (When he questioned her after the incident, she had mumbled something incomprehensible about freckles, but he’d chalked that up to poison-induced delirium.)

Oh, and that was the other issue: it had been nearly a week now, and the thief was  _ still here. _

He had only offered Ashe a job because Byleth had asked, and Byleth never asked for  _ anything. _ Jeralt had figured that a few days into the journey they’d wake up to find that the thief had vanished along with most of their valuables, and that would be the end of it. Non-ideal, but whatever. It’d be a learning experience. 

(In hindsight, perhaps ‘people are assholes so trust no one’ wouldn’t have been the best lesson for someone struggling to develop empathy.)

But now they were well within the lands of house Gatier, the frozen wasteland at the top of the goddamn continent. Half of his more dependable mercenaries had dipped out instead of going to fight a war in this snowy shithole. Yet this guy was sticking around, even though he’d essentially only joined up to avoid getting arrested. 

Clearly something was up, and as the leader of the mercenary crew it was Jeralt’s job to find out what. While knew he should be the last person to judge someone for keeping secrets, under the circumstances he felt that he was entitled to some hypocrisy. His concerns were completely reasonable, just as they were completely unrelated to how much time the ‘former’ thief was spending with his daughter. Obviously. 

“Hey. Ashe. Could I talk to you for a minute?” The mercenary troop was taking a short midday rest before continuing on to join the army defending the northern fort. They’d divided into groups and thrown some groundsheets over the frozen dirt and slush to get a dry place to sit.

“Oh, uh, sure!” The man in question scrambled to his feet as some of the surrounding mercenaries muttered speculatively. He distinctly heard Jesse murmur ‘ooooooo, you’re in trooooouble’ like a goddamn schoolboy. Jeralt shot him a glare, knowing full well it wouldn’t do much to discourage the man. Apparently, he’d hired a bunch of immature jackasses. What else was new.

Jeralt walked them a little ways down the road from the main group, though he suspected some level of eavesdropping would occur anyways. Right. Conversation time.

“So… I notice you’ve been spending a lot of time with Byleth.” He wasn’t entirely sure how to start this discussion, but that seemed as good a topic as any.

“Er… yes?” Ashe answered cautiously. “W-we’re just friends! If that’s what you’re asking!” He hastily added, his voice shooting up a pitch.

“That’s… not what I was asking. But thanks for the clarification.” Apparently this had been mistaken for a shovel talk, which it definitely wasn’t. Definitely. He sighed. “Nevermind. I won’t beat around the bush. Why are you still here?”

  
Ashe frowned. “Well, I seem to recall you offering me a job,” Sassy, this one.

“Riiiiight. You were a petty criminal for years and then suddenly,  _ suddenly _ you decide to fuck off to the top of the world with people you barely know.” Best case, he just had nothing better to do and nothing better to fight for. Worst case… “What are you running from?”

“Excuse me?” The words were bold, but he did look a bit nervous. Hmm.

“Arrest warrant? Criminal gang?” Jeralt just started guessing, watching for a reaction.

“What? No. What are you  _ on _ about?”

“Some assassin you double crossed, out for vengeance?”

“I don’t generally double cross people, thank you very much.” He said it a bit testily, but that wasn’t a no...

“Uh-huh. What about that guy Byleth fought?” Granted, they hadn’t given him much of a choice on that one.

“That was different! Besides-”

The conversation, if it even qualified for that title, was interrupted by a large shadow passing overhead. Jeralt groaned internally; this better not be Seteth again…

He glanced up as a pegasus rider swooped down to hover right in front of him.

“Hey! Are you Jeralt?” The rider, a young blonde woman, yelled over the noise of her pegasus’ wing flaps. He noticed with alarm that she appeared to have come straight from a fight; the pegasus’s flank was spattered with blood, and she was brandishing a lance. 

“That’s me.”

“Oh, thank the goddess. I am Ingrid Galatea, fighting on behalf of House Gatier,” she explained quickly. “Some demonic beasts surged across the border an hour ago, they’re attacking the southern fort. We need reinforcements just as soon as you can get there. You know where that is?” He nodded. “Great, I have to head back. Please hurry.” She kicked the pegasus and it surged off to the east.

Shit. Questioning forgotten, he charged back towards the main group. Most had seen the pegasus and were already preparing to break camp. “Grab your weapons, we’re heading to battle!”

===========================

Jeralt was well practiced at scrambling through battle preparations; it took him less than five minutes to get his horse unharnessed from the supply wagon and ready for combat. He charged ahead with the few other cavalry units, quickly outspeeding the infantry. It would be safer to keep everyone together, but from the sound of it they just didn’t have the time. The mounted group would just have to hold out long enough for the rest to catch up.

They could hear the battle before they could see it, the roars of monsters punctuated by human screams. 

  
Jeralt took quick stock of the situation as the small group burst from the treeline. The fort’s high walls were under attack by two huge, almost draconic black beasts. In the distance to either side, more monsters were lumbering slowly closer. The battle at the gate had likely been going on for some time, if the trampled corpses surrounding the scene were any indication, and while they seemed to be holding out for now he was certain it wouldn’t last long if more enemies joined the fray. A quick check revealed three creatures approaching from the nearer side, and one from the far one. 

“I’ll handle that fucker over there, don’t let these three reach the gate!” he barked to his men, turning his mount to charge around the back of the fort to intercept the demonic beast. 

He was nearly close enough to the monster’s flank to start his assault when his horse reared, a huge burst of dark energy erupting beneath its hooves. He whirled in the saddle to see a group of robed dark mages flinging spells from behind the creature. Idiots. While they were likely there to support the attack, experience told him that they’d gotten far too close to the beast; it was going to lash out at them at the smallest provocation. Jeralt paused his charge to instead guide his horse to the opposite side of the creature, keeping his distance and waiting for it to turn on the mages…

But it didn’t. The beast surged forwards towards him, and he would never have dodged in time if not for his steed’s fast reflexes. The monster’s teeth grazed the side of his leg, but he used the proximity to stab his lance into the cracked scales on its face. The creature jerked back, pulling the lance from his hands as it writhed. Shit. He reached for a javelin, staggering as he was hit with another miasma spell. Bloody mages. His cavalry unit was spread thin holding back the beasts on the far side of the town, and the infantry wouldn’t arrive for a few more minutes at least. Where the hell was the rest of the allied army? Those few soldiers he’d seen defending the outer wall couldn’t have been it, right?

Regardless, he needed to move. Jeralt urged his horse into a gallop back towards the fort, hoping his lance had slowed the beast behind him enough to buy some time. The defenders at the town’s gate were still being assaulted by one of the demonic beasts, though it seemed they’d managed to defeat the other. Unfortunately, a pair of monstrous birds had joined the party since he’d last checked. A small contingent of archers and pegasus riders was fighting with all they had to keep control of the town’s airspace, leaving the ground units to deal with the remaining lizard alone. He watched as the latter monster collapsed, only to rise again a moment later. Blasted things, couldn’t even die properly.

He took advantage of his flanking position to storm up to the beast, using a javelin to quickly pry one of the huge scales from its left side. The creature whirled around to swipe at him, far quicker than he’d expected; his dodge came just a bit too late. A huge claw raked across his horse’s eyes and it reared in pain, throwing Jeralt to the ground. The blinded steed charged away in a panic, directly toward the beast they’d just fled from. Shit. He’d liked that horse, too.

Jeralt began a frenzied dash to put some distance between himself and the monster, who was at least being drawn away from the town in its attempt to follow. A roar of pain caused him to look back in time to see a swordsmaster from the town deal a quick frenzy of slashes to the beast’s right flank. The monster turned back towards the town, which was a relief since the other one had ignored the wounded horse and was rapidly approaching his position. Fuck.

Jeralt drank a vulnerary and moved slightly to keep the advancing beast between him and the dark mages. He didn’t like his chances at solo-ing a draconic monster, but he preferred them to his chances against a whole squadron of magic users. Fortunately, his lance was still embedded in the beast’s face. Unfortunately, the skin and scales around it looked healed. Bloody mages. He readied his javelin.

The creature never reached his position. Without warning, Byleth surged out of the forest to his right and slammed her sword right into the monster’s head while grabbing for the lance with the other hand. She was thrown off balance when the beast reared in surprise, but the lance miraculously came loose, taking a few scales with it. Jeralt rushed over, glancing back to see if she’d brought extra help (she hadn’t).

“Took you long enough. Where are the rest of them?” He was relieved to see her, of course, but he’d kinda been hoping for an army.   
  
“There were two that way.” She offered him the lance, which he took gratefully.

“I meant the mercenaries, Byleth.” 

“Yeah. I told them to go for the other two.” ...well, he couldn’t really judge her for that call. He’d made the same one with the cavalry. They’d find out soon enough if it was the right one.

The poorly-timed conversation was interrupted as they both leapt backwards to dodge a mire spell. Oh, right, the enemy. 

  
“Okay. I’ll try to draw the beast’s attack.” He had the heavier armor, after all. “Do you think you can handle the mages?”

She nodded and ran around the beast’s side as he charged straight at its front, flinging his javelin into the exposed wound on its face. The creature roared and slammed its forepaw into his middle, knocking him back a few feet. He got in another slash with the lance before it pulled back to charge a staggering blow.

He glanced over to see Byleth struggling to close the distance to the squadron of dark mages. The fuckers kept flinging spells from their position, and while she was dodging as hard as she could it wouldn’t last forever. At least she was keeping them occupied; he needed to damage the beast as much as possible while he had an opening. A powerful strike to the creature’s shoulder managed to chip off some more scales before he backed off to focus on dodging the incoming attack.

Something whistled through the air to his right, and a mage let out a shriek. With some effort he pushed back his natural curiosity, concentrating instead on the monster’s movements… A well-timed parry with his lance interrupted the beast’s blow and knocked another scale off its face. The monster collapsed in the throes of its first ‘death,’ and he turned away in time to see a second arrow fly through the air and pierce through a mage’s shoulder. The ensuing confusion of a misfiring spell gave Byleth an opening to get into melee range. Cloth armor was no match for her blade, and she sliced one of her foes nearly in half before any of them could react. 

Of the remaining mages, two began to cast while the injured third attempted a partial retreat. A dark spell slammed into Byleth at point-blank, while another whizzed past into the trees behind them. Probably aiming for the archer, but Jeralt didn’t have time to worry about that as he was already running up to aid his daughter, fervently wishing he still had the javelins that had run off with his horse. 

Byleth, meanwhile, had managed to deliver another devastating slash to one of the foes. The other hesitated for a moment, choosing between three potential targets. What was this, amateur hour? Whatever decision had been reached became obsolete when Jeralt speared the mage right through the side. He searched momentarily for the one that had retreated, only to spot them a few feet away with an arrow straight through the neck. Convenient, that.

A growl to the side signaled that the bloody beast was back up. The creature charged towards Byleth, head low to the ground as it let out a deafening roar-

But apparently Byleth had had enough of this shit. Without even flinching, she slammed her sword straight through the inside of the beast’s bottom jaw and into the ground below. She pulled her arms out of the way just as its mouth slammed shut, the force of the action only serving to push the blade in even further. The creature thrashed, but the sword’s point was now effectively pinning its head to the ground. A huge gush of black slime poured from the expanding wound. Within half a minute, the beast’s writhing form began to dissolve into tendrils of smoke that dissipated in the air and oily scum that sank into the ground, until only a mangled human corpse was left behind. The body’s lower jaw was split in two, and huge chunks were torn from the flesh in the places where the creature’s scales had been ripped off.

Seemingly unbothered by the destruction she had wrought, Byleth yanked her sword from the stained earth and wiped it in a nearby patch of grass. Jeralt stepped forwards to retrieve his javelin as a distant cheer erupted from the fort. It sounded like the battle was finally over. Thank fuck.

“That was amazing!” Both turned to see Ashe hurrying out of the treeline. “I can’t believe you just took that thing out in one hit!”

Byleth nodded in acknowledgement. “You did well too. With the mages. Those were very impressive shots.” Jeralt begrudgingly agreed, though he didn’t say so aloud.

“Oh! Well, that was nothing, really.” Ashe smiled bashfully and fidgeted with his bangs. “I’m just glad I could help.” And Jeralt couldn’t be sure, but certainly looked as though the kid might even be blushing a bit. How disgustingly saccharine.

“Let’s head to the fort,” Jeralt interjected before the conversation could continue. This whole day had been one headache after another, but with any luck matters would improve once they returned to the group.

===========================

Matters did not improve.

“We could’ve handled it on our own.” 

Jeralt stood just within the gates of the fort, talking to a pair of the defenders who seemed at least slightly in charge of this mess. Byleth stood beside him, silently neutral as usual. Next to her was Ashe, who was periodically glancing towards the main group of mercenaries. He seemed to be weighing the relative rudeness of staying in a conversation he wasn’t necessarily invited to against that of walking away while someone was talking.

“No, we couldn’t have, Felix.” The pegasus rider - Ingrid, that was her name - sounded equal parts annoyed and exhausted. Jeralt had never related to someone more.

“Speak for yourself. I was holding the gate just fine.” Felix, who he recognized as the swordsmaster from earlier, just sounded annoyed. 

“Against one of them! There were four more, Felix.”

He scoffed. “It would have been an interesting challenge.”

_ “People have died, Felix.” _

“Look, if I may,” Jeralt interrupted, “it doesn’t really matter. The Margrave already hired us to help with the border. It’s not like we’re charging extra based on how needed the help was.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Felix muttered under his breath. 

Ingrid shot him a Look. “Well,  _ I  _ for one am grateful for your assistance. Your group can stay at the fort tonight, if you want.”

Jeralt considered. It was probably the best plan; everyone was likely to be tired and/or injured after that mess. “Alright. We’ll continue on towards the northern fort in the morning.”

“Actually, under the circumstances, it might make more sense for you to continue to aid the defenses here. This wasn’t the first attack like that, so we really need all the help we can get. You can talk it over with Sylvain when he gets back tomorrow.” She scowled. “Assuming the idiot hasn’t gotten himself killed.” The words were harsh, but her tone and furrowed brow betrayed a level of concern.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Felix stated with absolute certainty. “He knows he isn’t allowed.” ...what the fuck?

Whatever. Jeralt latched on to the most interesting piece of information. “This fort’s been attacked by demonic beasts before?”

Ingrid sighed wearily. “Yeah. Periodically, in fact.”

“It’s an effective strategy,” Felix contributed. “A single beast can deal a lot more damage than an ordinary foot soldier.” 

Jeralt was no expert on these things, but… “I thought demonic beasts came from crest stones. How the hell is Sreng’s army getting ahold of that many?” 

“We don’t know,” Ingrid supplied sullenly. Felix scowled, but Jeralt was beginning to suspect that that was the man’s natural state of being.

“Huh.” Well at least this explained why the Church had been called on for help. And it meant they’d probably give it. ...which meant Seteth might come back. Oh joy.

No one said anything for a full minute.

“...anyways.” Ingrid turned her attention to Ashe and Byleth. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself to you two. I am Ingrid, heir of house Galatea.” She did a short bow and looked pointedly at Felix.

“I’m Felix.” Her eyebrows rose. “Of house Fraldarius,” he added begrudgingly. “I am  _ not _ bowing” he hissed under his breath. Ingrid glared, but didn’t push it.

“Ashe Ubert, at your service” the archer introduced himself after a few awkward seconds of Byleth failing to talk. He did a low bow. “It’s very nice to meet you both.” It seemed like he knew at least a bit of etiquette for dealing with nobles, which was probably good. Personally, Jeralt rarely bothered with such things. 

“Byleth Eisner. ...at your service.” She bowed uncertainly. It was technically far too shallow to be polite, but they were being paid to fight, not to grovel.

At that, Felix finally seemed to take a positive interest in the conversation. “Byleth, huh? So you must be the one they call the Ashen Demon.”

She simply nodded in response.

“I’ve heard great things about your skill on the battlefield. We will have to cross swords sometime. I’d like to judge for myself if you’re worthy of all that praise.” To his side, Ingrid buried her head in her hands and muttered something under her breath.

“Of course she is, she took out a demonic beast with one hit!” Ashe jumped to Byleth’s defense, which was convenient because it meant Jeralt didn’t need to do it. 

Felix whistled. “Now that  _ is  _ impressive. It’s not often that I meet such a worthy adversary. I look forward to surpassing you in battle.” Cocky bastard.

Byleth’s eyes narrowed slightly at that one. “You can certainly try.”

“A warrior’s answer, to be sure!” he laughed. “I can see you share the same hunger for power-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Felix, leave her alone!” Ingrid interjected. “I swear, you’re worse than Sylvain sometimes.”

Felix whirled around to face her, conversation forgotten. _“You take that back!”_ he hissed, and the two began to bicker in earnest.

Ashe looked mildly concerned. Byleth looked impassive.

Jeralt looked for his flask. He was far too sober for this shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, in another universe, the Sreng tactician throws their console across the room. Those reinforcements were bullshit. Especially that crit at the end. Now they have to restart the level.
> 
> ...so, uh, I haven't reached the timeskip on Blue Lions yet, and I didn't recruit Felix or Ingrid on my Crimson Flower run. So if this portrayal doesn't properly reflect their timeskip character development, that's why. Let's just blame it on the lack of a war?
> 
> I doubt I'll get another update out this month, so see you all in 2021!


	9. On the Subjectivity of Shortcomings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth mopes, Ashe withholds information, and Jeralt delegates a task.

Things had been going pretty well for Ashe lately. It wouldn’t last.

He had a legitimate job, somehow, with a group of people who he was fast considering his friends. He had finally been given a chance to listen to the story contained in the book he’d been lugging about. He had even been reasonably useful in his first battle, which had been followed by what was probably the most pleasant interaction he’d ever had with members of the nobility.

Perhaps it was pessimistic to expect it all to go to shit soon, but he had years upon years of experience to back that theory. Besides, he knew damn well that he had done nothing to deserve a positive change in fortunes (well, he’d helped Byleth, but that was just basic human decency). Then again, he and his family had done nothing to deserve the initial misfortunes that started this whole mess, so maybe it wasn’t a matter of deservedness so much as entropy. And if that was the case, well... he supposed that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

He knew his streak of good fortune was bound to run out one of these days. All the more reason to try to enjoy it while it lasted.

Ashe pulled his thoughts back to the present as he reached the common room of the barracks. What with everything that had happened today, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Byleth was too busy or too tired to read. Yet he found her already seated on a stool by the fireplace; it seemed like she’d really meant it when she promised to always have time for him. A smile crept onto his face as he grabbed a stool from one of the tables and brought it over. 

“Busy day today,” he commented, sitting beside her. “I’m glad they’re letting us stay in the fort. I take it you guys don't get to use indoor lodging much.”

Byleth just nodded slightly, staring into the fire. Ashe frowned; that wasn’t necessarily unusual for her, but she had been getting more talkative as of late.

“Is everything okay?” He asked, scooting his seat a bit closer. He could be projecting, but she somehow appeared a bit distracted.

“Just… thinking about the battle.”

“Oh? I thought it went rather well.” A few of the mercenaries had been badly injured, and Jeralt had lost his horse, but no one had died. Perhaps her standards were higher, though.

“It did. I really shouldn’t complain.” She was silent for a few moments, then shook her head. “I’m just frustrated that I couldn’t take out those mages without help, I guess.”

“There were five of them, though, and you didn’t have a ranged weapon. Anyone would have struggled under the circumstances.” He thought back to the scene. “And I think you would’ve gotten them eventually, once Jeralt took the beast down.” A bit optimistic, that, but not completely impossible.

“...maybe.” She didn’t seem convinced.

“Besides, isn’t that the point of fighting with a group? Making sure there are people to cover you?” Unlike that bitter noble they’d met earlier, she didn’t seem like the type to resent combat assistance.

“It is,” she acquiesced, “but… that’s not always possible.” 

He recalled how she’d gone off to fight the beast alone, sending the rest of the troop after the other ones. How he’d realized from the number of cavalry fighters already there that Jeralt had probably done the same thing. That had been the main reason he’d left to aid those two instead, actually. But he couldn’t say that either had made a bad call, since overwhelming numbers were the tried-and-true way to fight large monsters while minimizing casualties. If they had dedicated fewer mercenaries to that fight, it was possible that it wouldn’t have gone so smoothly. 

“Maybe you could learn a ranged weapon.” While he _wanted_ to swear that he’d always be there to help, he got the feeling that Byleth would prefer tangible solutions to empty promises. “That would make countering magical attacks much easier.”

“Maybe... I do know the fire spell, but that doesn’t hit mages hard at all.” Right, he remembered how she’d used it on him when they first met. 

It was strange; his impression of her had changed so much since that night that it was easy to forget that both were the same person. Back then, he’d found her kind of terrifying. Now, though… well, he had to admit that he’d developed a bit of a crush. Just a bit of one, though, and nothing would come of it, so it really wasn’t worth dwelling on. 

He pulled himself back to the conversation at hand.

“Besides,” Byleth was saying, “I can’t dodge as well if I’m carrying around a bunch of extra weaponry.” She tipped her head in thought. “I wonder if I could’ve charged through the attacks…”

“What! No no no, don’t do that!” She wasn’t serious, was she? It was hard to tell, sometimes. He could empathize with her plight, though; when relying on stealth, choosing weapons that didn’t impact your movement was key. Actually… “How about throwing knives? They’re pretty light.”

She considered for a few moments. “...those could work.” Her brow furrowed a bit. “I don’t remember ever seeing them stocked in an armory, though.” Yeah, they were more of a black market kind of thing. Most reputable blacksmiths wanted to distance themselves from easily concealed weaponry, for fear of their merchandise being found embedded in the local lord’s neck.

“You can use some of mine. Just… don’t ask where I got them.”

She let out a short huff that might’ve been the beginnings of a laugh (though Ashe hadn’t exactly been joking). He’d never heard her laugh properly, he realized. “Alright. I guess I was decent at darts. It can’t be much harder.”

“Er…” It kind of was, but he didn’t want to discourage her. “How about I show you tomorrow? I’m sure this place has an archery range.” That was probably the best option, and besides, it would be nice to spend some time with her outside of their nightly reading sessions.

She hesitated a moment, then gave a short nod. “I’d like that. Thank you.” And, hey! She was smiling! It was subtle, to be sure, but her mouth was definitely turning up at the corners.

Ashe decided on the spot that this might be the best idea he’d ever had.

===========================

In the harsh light of the early afternoon, Ashe realized that this might be the worst idea he’d ever had.

What had he even been _thinking_ yesterday? ‘Sure, Byleth, I’ll teach you how to use throwing knives! Don’t worry, they aren’t _technically_ illegal, I only _acquired_ them illegally! And used them to kill people during the exceedingly illegal jobs I used to do! I’m a trustworthy friend, though, I swear!’ 

...he was an idiot.

But he was an idiot who kept his promises.

“Ok, let’s see what we’ve got…” He unrolled a cloth to reveal his collection of throwing knives, which somehow seemed much larger now that he was in a situation where it was vaguely incriminating. Bit late to worry about that, though. The quality of the knives varied wildly, so he started carefully going through the assortment and setting aside the most well-balanced ones. Byleth watched carefully, occasionally asking questions; it seemed she was serious about learning this.

“What was wrong with that one?” She asked after he removed a knife from its pocket in the cloth, only to return it after just a single glance.

He paused. Crud. Here was yet another reason why this was a _bad idea._ It was tempting to come up with some kind of lie, perhaps invent some kind of design flaw, but… if she was going to borrow knives from him in the future, it would be _very_ easy for that to backfire. Resignedly, he brought the blade back out.

“See this spot of blue paint towards the center?” She nodded. “That’s how I mark the venin ones.” Hopefully she wouldn’t ask any awkward follow up questions, like ‘why do you have a venomous throwing knife?’ or, even worse, ‘why do you apparently have so many that you need a system for marking them?’

“Oh.” And somehow that felt like the worst possible response, because it probably meant she was thinking the other questions but wasn’t comfortable enough to ask them.

“...so, um, be careful with those ones…” (Yeah, no shit, Ashe.) He put the knife away, not quite meeting her eyes. Well, at least she knew now, and he didn’t have to worry about her nicking herself on one by accident.

No one talked for a few excruciating minutes. He found two more (relatively) safe knives to put in the pile.

“This one has a red dot.” Byleth noted suddenly, pointing at one of the knives he’d set aside. “What’s that mean?”

“Oh, that’s just a decoy mark, you only have to worry about the blue ones in my set,” he explained quickly, too relieved that she was still talking to him to watch his words. “Everyone does it differently, though. If you ever take weapons from an assassin, just assume they’ve got venom on them until you get a chance to check.”

“Or a thief, I guess,” she noted. Wait, what had he said?

...shit.

“...yeah. Or a thief.”

He should probably tell her. She might’ve guessed already, actually. 

Ashe stole a quick glance. Byleth was examining one of the knives he’d set aside, apparently trying to get a feel for the weight of it, and not giving any indication that she’d deduced the reason for his slip-up. So either she hadn’t figured it out, or she had decided not to say anything, and right now either was fine with him. 

Besides, on second thought, it wasn’t really any of her business, was it? He hadn’t taken on an assassination contract in months, after all; he really _had_ just been acting as a scout for the hit on Lord Mycen. So he hadn’t actually _lied_ about anything. And that was all in the past, now, so it shouldn’t matter, really. He didn’t need to tell her. 

(But he should.) 

But he _wouldn’t,_ because while it was possible she wouldn’t care it was also possible that she _would,_ and if she _did_ it was a life sentence at best and a death sentence at worst, and he hadn’t even told his _siblings,_ for fuck’s sake, and it wasn’t that he didn’t _trust_ her, it was just…

...not worth thinking about, really. 

Ashe pushed back any lingering guilt (when had that gotten so easy?) and returned his attention to the task at hand. “Alright, we should have enough to get started. Now, what you want to do is…” 

===========================

Unsurprisingly, Byleth was a quick study. It had taken no time at all for her to go from ‘struggling with the grip and throwing motion’ to ‘consistently hitting the target.’ It was honestly pretty impressive, though she claimed that was just from applying her experience with javelins (she’d opted for the non-spinning style to better leverage this). 

Unfortunately, while her throws were consistently landing on the target, she still couldn’t make any guarantees about _where_ on the target they’d land. And she was evidently a perfectionist, as her current goal was two bullseyes in a row (he’d talked her down from three, somehow). Seeing as he hadn’t seen her land a single bullseye in some time, it seemed like they’d be here a while.

On the plus side, he was learning some colorful new swears.

“Sieros’ sagging tits...”

This was the first occasion on which he’d heard her curse, actually. He wondered vaguely if she’d learned them all from Jeralt, or just picked them up over the years.

“You’re still flicking your wrist a bit too much, that’s why they mostly hit below the center,” he advised as Byleth stared glumly at the target. Her last throw had barely made it onto the board, embedding itself right along the bottom edge. “Your horizontal aim is getting better, though, and that’s the more practical one for hitting people. That would’ve been a bullseye if it was a bit higher.”

Byleth shook her head and went to retrieve the knives from the board. It was frustrating; she really _was_ progressing astonishingly quickly, but it seemed that her standards were just a bit too high for her to accept that. And while he was trying to help as best he could, there just wasn’t much more he could do.

Oh, and one more bit of bad news. “...we’ll have to stop soon. The sun’s going down.” The days were inconveniently short this time of year. He hated to end on a bad note but they didn’t really have the option to stay outside, not with how bitterly cold it could get. Especially since Byleth was apparently sticking to her usual getup, which, er… did not look warm. He had considered advising her to get heavier clothing, but that would require him to verbally admit to _noticing_ how not-warm her outfit was, and he didn’t believe he could manage that without combusting from sheer embarrassment. Still, how she’d managed to get this far _without_ succumbing to hypothermia was beyond him.

“...alright.” Byelth acquiesced. “One more try.” 

In a shameful lack of poetic justice on the part of the universe, Byleth didn’t get her two bullseyes. She did get one, though, and considering she’d been at it for just a single afternoon, that was very impressive.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“Hey, nice throw kiddo.” Jeralt walked slowly over, leading a horse with a huge bandage wrapped around the majority of its face. The animal must be completely blinded by the thing. Ashe had thought Jeralt’s horse had died in the battle, though he supposed he never saw a corpse. It must have been wandering blindly for a while; it was amazing that it had survived the night. “Bit of an odd weapon choice, though. Where’d you get those from?”

“Ashe gave them to me,” Byelth replied without hesitation. This was yet another reason he was reluctant to tell her about the whole... assassin business; while he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t turn him in, he couldn’t say the same about her father. And it just wouldn’t be fair to ask her to lie on his behalf. 

“I see. And how did Ashe get them?” 

“By not asking questions,” Ashe shot back, because seriously, Jeralt? Take a wild guess. 

Jeralt snorted a bit in amusement. “Right, right, fair enough.” Huh, that was… easier than he’d expected it to be, considering how much Jeralt tended to hound him about his past.

“Anyways, I’m heading to meet with the young Gatier,” Jeralt continued. “We need to determine which fort we’re needed at, and I’m going to try to get more hazard pay.” He sounded a bit agitated; was he expecting things to go badly?

Byleth nodded. “Alright, I’ll be along as soon as I get the knives back.” She started to walk towards the target.

“Ah. Actually… I need you to take Kelpie here to the stables for me.” He said it hesitantly, like it was an excuse. It probably was.

Byleth paused and turned around. “You… don’t want my help with the negotiations?” She sounded a bit put out.

“No, it’s not _that,_ I just… need someone to take care of Kelpie.” Oh it was most definitely that.

Ashe quickly spoke up. “I can take Kelpie, if Byleth wants to attend the meeting.” Your move, Jeralt.

The mercenary leader leveled him with a flat stare. 

Byleth caught on immediately. “Sounds good.” She turned to her father. “So, where is this meeting taking place?”

Jeralt’s eyebrows rose, then he shook his head with a chuckle. “Right, right, I see how it is. Ganging up on your elders.” He hesitated another few seconds, then let out a sigh of resignation. “Fine. Byleth, you can come along if you want. Just, be aware that Gatier’s got a bit of a… reputation.” Ah. That explained some things about Jeralt’s behavior. Ashe had heard the rumors, of course; hell, he’d be surprised if there was a person left in the Kingdom who **hadn’t** heard the rumors. “But as long as neither of us stabs him we should be good, I guess.”

Byleth nodded her understanding, then went to fetch the knives as Jeralt reluctantly handed the horse’s reins to Ashe.

The horse mildly turned her head in his direction. “Hello, Kelpie. It’s nice to meet you.” He let the mare sniff his hand, then lightly patted her nose. For having what must be a terrible injury, she was remarkably calm. “Bit of a morbid name for such a nice horse.”

Jeralt smiled slightly. “Yeah, well, Sitri always liked sinister names. I try to keep up the tradition.”

Ashe noted the past tense. “Oh… I’m sorry for your loss.” Was that Byleth’s mother? He’d never heard either of them talk about her, so it seemed like a reasonable guess.

“...thanks.”

The vaguely awkward silence was broken by Byleth’s return. To Ashe’s confusion, she tried to hand the bundle of knives back to him. 

“Why are you giving these to me?” A thought occurred. “Oh! I’m happy to hold onto them for a bit if you don’t want to bring them to the meeting.” Carrying a bunch of knives into a meeting with a noble might not be the best idea, though it’d be one hell of a power play. Perhaps it would even dissuade Lord Gatier’s flirtatious tendencies.

Byleth looked a bit confused. “No, that’s… I guess I’ll just pay you back for them later, then?”

Pay him back…? “Those are yours, Byleth. I meant them as a gift.”

“Oh.” She glanced down at the bundle, then back up at him. “Are you sure? Weapons are expensive, you must have spent a lot of money on them.”

Jeralt scoffed loudly at that. Ashe pointedly ignored him.

“Don’t worry about it, really. I’ve got plenty of others. Besides, I probably won’t even need them anymore, since I’m acting as an archer now.” She still seemed uncertain. “I’m not going to charge a friend for something so minor. In fact, I absolutely refuse to.” 

She smiled lightly at him. “Well, then… thank you, Ashe.” He couldn’t help but smile back, and his face was heating up… Was he blushing? He probably was, his cheeks tended to turn red at the slightest provocation. He attempted to hide it by turning to fuss over Kelpie, who was patiently standing by.

Jeralt coughed loudly. “Right! Let’s get going, wouldn’t want to be late.” He gave the horse a pat on the side and led Byleth towards the main building. As they walked away, Ashe could hear him coaching her on the upcoming negotiation. “Now, as far as pay goes, we’re looking for an increase of at least…”

Ashe turned back to the patient mare. “Alright, Kelpie, let’s get you to the stable.” 

He turned to lead her, but quickly identified an obvious flaw in his plan. 

“Er… I don’t suppose you know where the stable is?” 

Kelpie snorted derisively; if she still had eyes, they’d have rolled, he was sure of it. This was Jeralt’s horse alright. 

Ashe laughed. “That’s okay. We’ll find it together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Here's hoping for a good one!
> 
> So, that reveal was originally going to come later, but it's kinda awkward to hide it in Ashe's chapters and this seemed as good a place as any. Hopefully I did alright with the foreshadowing; as always, feedback is appreciated.
> 
> Did you guys know that there are multiple knife-throwing techniques? Useless fic trivia #1 is that Ashe spins his knives because he learned axe throwing first. Useless fic trivia #2 is that spinning knives do more damage in this universe because if I've learned anything from Fire Emblem, it's that the cooler an attack looks, the more powerful it is.


	10. On the Subjectivity of Etiquette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeralt reveals information, Sothis shares some wisdom, Ashe impersonates a lord, and Byleth procrastinates.

In Byleth’s experience, there had never existed a day that couldn’t be made worse by a meeting.

_If you did not want to go, why did you argue earlier?_

_Well, it’s the principle of the thing, you know?_

As usual, Jeralt’s role in the meeting would be to handle introductions, negotiations, and any other issues that arose, while Byleth’s role would be to stand by and look intimidating. It was a bit of a mystery why Jeralt ever bothered to bring her along on these things, but he always did. Without fail. Sothis had suggested once that he might be hoping for her to inherit command of the mercenary crew someday, at which point she’d have to run these meetings herself. Byleth thought that was embarrassingly optimistic on his part, given that the other mercenaries tolerated her at best.

But today, he'd done his darnedest to keep her out of it, and she wanted to know why.

_I suppose… It_ **_is_ ** _quite curious that he didn’t invite you this time. And why is he planning to ask for such a large salary increase?_

That was the other thing that confused her; she’d never heard him ask for more than a five or ten percent increase, but today they’d be aiming for sixty. If they wanted so much more, why had he taken the contract in the first place? Something was clearly up, and it was well worth sitting through a meeting to find out what that was. 

Jeralt and Byleth entered the fort’s war room to find a young redheaded man staring almost disinterestedly at a map of the region. He straightened at their arrival and made his way around the table to meet them.

“I take it you’re the young Lord Gatier?” Jeralt asked, rather unnecessarily.

“The one and only,” the man confirmed with a wry smile. “You can just call me Sylvain, we’re all allies here.”

“Right.” Jeralt seemed begrudgingly pleased by this; he’d always hated formality. “I’m Jeralt, your father hired my mercenary troop to assist with this war. And this is Byleth. My _daughter._ ” He said the last word a bit pointedly, with the unspoken message of ‘don’t you fucking dare.’

_Amazing. Your father is truly a natural born diplomat._ Sothis’s words were positively dripping with sarcasm.

_Yeah, well, he means well…_

To everyone’s surprise, Sylvain seemed to actually heed his warning, just giving her a brief scan and a nod. “Nice to meet you, Byleth.” Huh.

_I suppose it is possible that the rumors were exaggerated. The ones about_ **_you_ ** _certainly are, after all._ Fair enough.

Introductions completed, Jeralt forged ahead. “Well, then; first order of business. Your father hired us to help at the northernmost fortification, but it’s been suggested that we might be needed here more. I don’t particularly care either way, as long as we’re getting paid.”

Sylvain started nodding before the explanation ended; it seemed he’d been expecting this. “Yeah, I gotta admit that Ingrid’s right about that one. Sreng may have focused their attacks on the fort so far, but to the north they’ve begun targeting border villages. If we’re to protect the nearby villagers without losing the fort, we need the extra troops. It’s up to you, of course, but if you’re okay with staying here we’d really appreciate it.”

Jeralt nodded. “Right. That shouldn’t be an issue.” 

“Great, that’s settled then.” Sylvain made as if to leave, seemingly under the impression that the meeting was over.

Jeralt cleared his throat hesitantly. “One other thing. I’m looking for a pay increase.”

“Seriously?” Sylvain paused. He seemed surprised, but not angry. At least not yet. “Aren’t you already getting a bonus for travel distance?”

“Well yes, but we weren’t expecting to be fighting demonic beasts.”

_That’s a stupid excuse if I ever heard one,_ Sothis grumbled. _If anything, humans are worse. Can never predict those bastards._

That was new. _You speak like you’ve been personally slighted, Sothis._

_I…_ She sounded surprised. _I am not sure. Perhaps I was._

“Yeah, well, you and me both.” Sylvain chuckled humorlessly and shook his head. It took Byleth a moment to remember he was responding to Jeralt, not Sothis. “Right, let’s hear it. How much more are you asking?”

“...sixty percent.”

“ _Sixty?!”_ Sylvain seemed too shocked to reply for a few long moments. Then his face hardened into a scowl. “You know what? No. Request denied.”

Jeralt gritted his teeth. “Listen-”

“Despite what you may have heard, I’m not an idiot. I know how much mercenaries charge.” He seemed to be getting actively angry now, Byleth noted with a bit of alarm. Though, if this somehow came to blows, her coat did currently conceal a number of throwing knives. “Believe it or not, my house is _not_ a bottomless source of gold. If you won’t fight for less, you should never have come up here.” He paused, and his eyes narrowed. “...you couldn’t have been hinging on me agreeing to that. There’s no fucking way. What’s this _actually_ about?”

_Yeah! Stick it to him!_

_Whose side are you on here, Sothis?_

Byleth glanced over at Jeralt. With a grimace, he pulled a scroll of parchment out of a pocket and handed it over. The young lord’s expression grew more incredulous as he read the document.

“My horse ran off in the last battle, then showed up at the gates this morning with that message left in the saddlebag. I don’t _think_ anyone else has seen it, but…” 

“Sreng’s trying to buy out the mercenaries we hired, and you were just _planning not to tell me?!”_

Well, shit. And if they were asking for sixty percent more, Sreng must be offering an awful lot of money.

_How can they even afford that? I had thought from your descriptions that Sreng was hardly a rich nation._ Sothis sounded more intrigued than alarmed.

_Maybe they’re banking on only a few mercenaries going for it?_

_Or on all of them kicking it before they can collect the payment._

_...yeah._

“Well, I was hoping to avoid it,” Jeralt admitted. “You know what they say about two people keeping a secret.” And apparently, he hadn’t trusted Byleth with it either. That… kind of hurt.

“Yeah, yeah, one has to be dead.” Sylvain swore under his breath. “Are you seriously considering siding with Sreng here? You saw firsthand how they’re utilizing their soldiers.”

_“I’m_ not considering it, personally.” Jeralt clarified. “And I imagine a number of my men will make the same call. But, they _are_ mercenaries; taking on mortal peril to get some extra cash is sort of in the job description. If news of this offer gets out, and you can’t match it… well, in the best case you’ll just have fewer troops than you’re hoping for.” He didn’t say the worst case, but Byleth could make an educated guess. For all that ‘don’t stab anyone on the way out’ was explicitly listed on the contract, it was nearly impossible to enforce.

“It’s worse than that,” Sylvain admitted softly, still staring down at the paper. “Besides Ingrid and Felix, the bulk of the Kingdom forces are up north. Most of the fighters stationed at this fort are mercenaries. If Sreng gets another message through and inspires enough turncoats, they could potentially take the fort from within.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll write to my father, see if we can shuffle some troops around to get more loyal fighters down here. I can ask about the pay raise too, but… We both know that’s not going to happen.”

There was a grim silence.

A thought occurred to Byleth; for the first time in the meeting, she spoke up. “Do you still want us here, then?” Both turned to look at her. “If you’re trying to lower the ratio of mercenaries in this fort, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to go north?” 

Sylvain seemed to seriously consider this. “...maybe. On the other hand, having a few dependable mercenaries in this fort could be to our advantage. If you two could keep an eye out for any signs of mutiny within the ranks…” 

_Oh, good, we’re spying on our own allies now. I’m certain that won’t backfire._ For once, Sothis had a point. _What do you mean, ‘for once’? I’ll have you know-_

Jeralt was nodding. “I see… that could work.” Could it? That kind of hinged on the traitors being dumb enough to clue them in to the plan.

_Well, I suppose that’s not_ **_too_ ** _unlikely, if they’re also dumb enough to think Sreng won’t use them as beast fodder._

“We should just tell everyone outright,” Byleth opined. “Seeing how they react could give us an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“We can’t kick people for acting suspiciously, Byleth.” Jeralt scoffed. “If we did, that archer of yours would be first to go.” Sylvain’s eyebrows rose a bit at that.

“...that’s not what I was saying,” she muttered. But Jeralt was already busy continuing the conversation, working out the logistics of their stay. Sylvain glanced at her with an expression akin to pity before returning his attention to her father’s pitch. 

Whatever. It was fine. Though, honestly, what was the point of her being here if no one took her suggestions seriously?

_...well,_ Sothis began hesitantly, and without a trace of her usual smugness, _to be fair, he wasn’t planning to invite you this-_

_Shut up._

And, for once, Sothis actually did.

===========================

Byleth may not have inherited much from her father in terms of appearance, but they did have some similarities. One of which was their matching alcohol flasks.

It had been an hour or two since the meeting, and Byleth had found that time had healed nothing. In fact, the longer she had to think about recent events, the more pissed off she became. And as she got more pissed off, she also got more pissed; drinking wouldn’t make her feel better _,_ but it would make her feel _less_ , and honestly that was close enough right now.

Issue the first: Jeralt had tried to exclude her from the meeting, ostensibly out of concerns about Sylvain behaving inappropriately. In hindsight, it was probably so she wouldn’t learn about Sreng’s offer, but that wasn’t _better._ Did he think she’d side with Sreng against her own damn family? Or perhaps he simply did not trust her to keep her mouth shut, despite being the _quietest person in the whole fucking army._

_girl you are takin this waaaaaay too personal._ Ah, this could become a problem. Byleth had finally managed to get tipsy, so of course Sothis was completely sloshed. _ya know Jerk-alt doesn’t say shit to anybody._

...perhaps she had a point.

_haha, geddit, ‘JERK-alt’? ‘cause he’s a, a jerk-_

_Yes, yes, that’s enough wisdom from you for today._

_-but, ya see, it’s also his NAME. like holy shit, do ya think his, his parents-_

Byleth tuned out Sothis’s inane rambling to instead fume internally about Issue the Second: Sreng’s offer. 

Well, not so much Sreng’s offer itself, that was a pretty common wartime strategy; she was more upset about the chosen response to it. It was only a matter of time before a message got through to someone and they faced a threat from within the fort’s walls. Maybe her plan wasn’t perfect either, but she’d just been suggesting keeping some level of control by at least knowing _when_ the offer was made public. There was no need for Jeralt to react the way he did, and _certainly_ no need for him to drag Ashe into it.

Besides, Ashe wouldn’t ditch to fight for the enemy, would he? She couldn’t imagine him doing that. He had friends here, after all; like her, and Jesse, and… some others whose names she couldn’t quite recall. Honestly, in her completely unbiased opinion, those randos were _far_ more likely to switch sides.

Though… if all of _them_ sided with Sreng… 

“Oh! There you are.”

Speak of the devil.

She glanced up to watch Ashe make his way to the table she’d claimed in the common room. He’d probably been looking for her by the fireplace, they tended to read at around this time. And she would, of course, she just… needed a minute. 

Ashe sat down beside her, cheerfully unaware of her dour mood. Really, he’d seemed pretty content lately, even earlier that afternoon when she’d wasted his time with her inability to hit the fucking target. Well, to be perfectly fair she’d done okay at the knife throwing, but on some level, she’d been hoping… she didn’t really know what she’d been hoping.

_to impress him?_

...yeah, that seemed pretty acc- Aaaaaaand now Sothis was laughing again. Jackass.

“So? How’d the meeting go?” 

Ah, yes, the meeting. Her favorite topic. She took another sip before responding. 

“We’re staying here. Sylvain’s going to write to the Margrave about the… hazard pay. He’s not in charge of that bit.” Hazard pay was the official excuse they’d established, but honestly she shouldn’t have said anything about it at all. Byleth was far more used to lying by omission, and was quickly discovering that she far preferred that strategy.

Thankfully, Ashe didn’t notice her hesitation, instead fixating on a different part of her statement. “You’re, ah, on a first name basis with Lord Gatier?” he asked weakly. 

Who the hell was Lord Ga… oh, right, he meant Sylvain.

“...yeah?” she replied uncertainly. “...should I not be?”

“W-well, um, he is a member of the nobility, so there’s generally a level of formality, unless you two are, um…” He visibly struggled to find the right words. “...closely acquainted?” 

_Hah! izzat what they’re callin it these days?_

Byleth stared blankly a moment, then shrugged. “It’s fine. I got permission.”

“Oh.” Ashe still seemed a bit perturbed, for some unfathomable reason.

Their attention was drawn just then to an eruption of giggles from the far corner of the room, where Sylvain himself was basking in the attention of a group of women. He had an arm slung around the shoulders of one, while he whispered directly into the ear of another. While it was too far for Byleth to hear what was being discussed, she could make an educated guess based on the amount of winking. 

Wonderful. A fun reminder of Issue the Third.

“...is that Lord Gatier over there?”

“Y-ep.” Her annoyance came through in her voice a bit more than she’d expected it to. Must be the alcohol.

“...he wasn’t that forward with _you,_ I hope.” She glanced over to see Ashe pre-emptively glaring daggers at the man. Ah, he’d misinterpreted the cause of her annoyance. It was honestly sort of amusing; for all his concern with acting respectfully towards the nobility, he was apparently still willing to throw hands with a lord on her behalf.

_fight! fight! fight! fight! fight!_

“No,” she clarified, ignoring Sothis’s chanting. “He didn’t flirt with me at all, actually.”

_boooooooooooooooooooooo_

Blessedly oblivious to Sothis’s disappointment, Ashe brightened. “Well, that’s good, right?” 

Was it, though? Was it really? She shrugged noncommittally and took a drink. His face fell.

“O-oh, did you… _want_ him to flirt with you?” He asked hesitantly.

_HAH! i was right! i called it! five points to sothis!_ Sothis crowed, sounding infinitely pleased with herself.

_Called what?_ Byleth asked, puzzled. But the floating nuisance was too busy cackling to answer.

Byleth heaved a sigh, stared into the flask, and opted for honesty. Well, partial honesty, anyway. “Maybe? It’s just… it’s the principle of the thing, you know?” 

Issue the Third: Sylvain had a reputation for hitting on anything with legs (and some things without, if the scarecrow story was to be believed). Earlier, she’d assumed the rumors were baseless. But now… well, it was clear from the developing scene that there was some substance to them. Yet, somehow, he hadn’t made a single attempt to flirt with her; not even now, when Jeralt wasn’t in the vicinity. Hell, she seemed to be the only person in the room he _hadn’t_ made a pass at. And although she didn’t particularly _want_ the attention, she couldn’t help but feel a bit slighted by the total lack of it. 

_byleth._ Sothis sounded as serious as she was drunk. _byleth, look at me, i gotta, i gotta tell you somethin’-_

_Sothis, you’re not visible right now-_

**_look at me._ ** _you’re a, a total bombshell-_

_A what, now?_

_-an’ if lord fuckboy can’t see that he’s a dumbass. or blind. waaaaitaminute! byleth! what if-_

_Thank you, Sothis, that’s enough._ Eh, she meant well. Even if at times Byleth didn’t understand half of what she was trying to say.

And granted, this mystery was a hell of a lot less pressing than issues one and two; but that was all the more reason to focus on it instead for now and not even _think_ about things with _actual_ consequences, (like the possibility of her only friend lea-) NOPE. Nope. No. 

She chugged a bit more to hammer home the distraction.

“The principle?” Ashe looked confused for a few moments, before his face cleared with understanding. “Oh! Oh, well, I’m sure he just didn’t want to upset your father, since he’s in charge of the mercenaries and all.”

“Yeah. Probably.” 

As they watched, Lord Gatier whispered something to one lady of his gaggle of fans. The woman nearly swooned.

Byleth scowled. “I’m calling bullshit, she’s clearly faking that. What is he even _saying_ to get such a reaction?”

Ashe murmured an indistinct agreement, then leaned over to whisper to her as Sylvain started to speak to another consort.

“‘Oh _madame,_ ’” Ashe dubbed in an exaggeratedly low and snooty voice. “‘I could not help but notice how _lovely_ you look in that outfit. Why, from the neck down, you are simply the most _gorgeous_ creature I have ever seen!’” His voice wavered a bit at the end as he struggled to contain his laughter. 

The impression hadn’t really sounded much like Sylvain, but Byleth let out a short huff of amusement nonetheless, feeling a smile creep onto her face. In the corner, the woman was preparing to respond; there was an opportunity here-

_NO!_ Sothis recovered from her drunken stupor just in time to object. _no no no no no, don’t-_

_I’m doing it._ It would be funny, dammit; and besides, he’d started it this time.

Byleth pitched her voice a bit higher to dub the woman’s response. “‘Why _thank you_ , good sir. I feel quite the same! Though, I fear we must start rather lower to reach _your_ good qualities!’” 

This was apparently a bit too much for Ashe, who had barely kept a straight face through his own joke. He broke down into barely muffled laughter, covering his face with his hands in a desperate attempt to hide his growing blush. Byleth chuckled a bit as well, though more at her friend’s reaction than anything that was said.

_I_ **_told_ ** _you it was funny._ Byleth thought smugly. Sothis just grumbled something unintelligible in response.

“What are you two chortling about?”  
  
Byleth glanced up to see the pegasus knight they’d met the day before regarding them curiously. Beside her, Ashe jumped in surprise.

“N-NOTHING! Nothing at all!” He yelped, voice shooting up at least a full octave. Despite herself, Byleth snickered.

The woman (dammit, what was her _name?_ ) raised her eyebrows, but didn’t press the issue. “If you say so. More to the point, have either of you seen Sylvain?”

Ashe recovered, with some effort. “Y-you mean Lord Gatier? He’s-” The corner was now completely vacant. “Oh. I-I’m terribly sorry, Lady Galatea, he was here just a minute ago. He must have just left.” 

“Alone?” Her tone suggested a faint glimmer of hope, buried deep within a trash heap of pessimism.

“I doubt it,” Byleth contributed bluntly. Beside her, Ashe winced.

The other woman swore and buried her head in her hands. “I **told** Felix he was relapsing, I **told** him, but noooooo, Ingrid’s just being paranoid again…” She shook herself. “Whatever. By the way, Byleth, Felix wants to spar with you tomorrow morning. He couldn’t come over to ask himself because _apparently_ I have to do _everything_ around here on top of _chaperoning_ these two _idiots!”_

Byleth stared at her for a few moments, then wordlessly held out the flask.

Ingrid (she was going to remember this time, dammit) accepted it gratefully, but managed only a single sip before her eyes shot wide open. She started to gag, erupting into a coughing fit.

_“Seiros above!”_ She choked out between coughs, slamming the flask back down on the table. “How are you _drinking_ that?!”

Byleth retrieved the drink with a frown. “...was that rhetorical, or…?”

“Yes! I just… gah!” She stuck her tongue out as if trying to air the taste out of it. “My apologies, I- I just wasn’t expecting something so strong.”

...well, she had _meant_ well by the gesture, and that ought to count for something. 

“Could I give it a try?” Ashe asked, curious. Byleth offered him the flask, and he took a very cautious sip, jumping a bit as the taste registered.

“That… sure is something all right.” His expression changed to one of concern. “How much have you had?”

“...some.” She hadn’t kept track, but the flask was certainly much lighter than when she’d started. “I have a high tolerance, it’s fine.” Plus the better part of it was being soaked up by the floating nuisance in her head. 

...who had probably passed out at this point, given how suspiciously quiet she was being. 

Ashe seemed unconvinced. “High tolerance or no, you should probably drink some water.” He stood. “Here, I’ll go get some from the mess hall. You just sit tight, okay?”

Byleth supposed that she couldn’t reasonably argue with that logic, so she nodded her understanding.

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you grab me one as well?” Ingrid asked. Oh, right, she was here too. 

Ashe looked a bit startled by the request. “Oh! Of course, Lady Galatea, it’s no trouble at all.” He hurried away.

“I like him,” Ingrid declared, dropping into the seat across from Byleth. “He seems low maintenance.”

Was she supposed to reply to that? Byleth nodded, just to be safe. 

“I wish Felix and Sylvain were half so considerate…” She paused for a moment, then sighed. “I guess that’s being a bit unfair. Sylvain spent years working to negotiate a lasting peace with Sreng, and then to see it fall to pieces practically overnight… He was already taking it pretty hard, and then they started using demonic beasts constantly _,_ and after what happened to- well, I know it doesn’t excuse his behavior, but…” Ingrid trailed off and stared down at the table.

And really, what the _fuck_ was Byleth supposed to say to that? She settled for another nod; hopefully that would convey the appropriate level of sympathy.

“...sorry for unloading that on you, I guess I just needed to vent. Anyways, I hope Sylvain behaved himself. I did make sure to let him know you were already in a relationship, he usually respects that-” 

.

. .

. . .

**?!**

Ingrid was still talking but Byleth’s brain had blanked halfway through the third sentence.

“Wait. Wait wait wait, back up.”

She stopped and regarded her with a puzzled look.

“You… told him I was in a relationship?” Byleth asked weakly.

“...yes? I mean, you never said so outright but from the way you two act it’s pretty-” Something must have shown on Byleth’s face, because Ingrid paused. Comprehension dawned. “Ohhhhh. Does your father not know?”

“...whut.”

“It’s alright,” She continued, “I won’t tell anyone else, but you should really consider-”

“I’m not in a relationship,” Byleth stated firmly before this madness could continue. Maybe she’d drank too much and was hallucinating this whole mess.

Ingrid stared, incredulous. “Really? But you- I mean-” Seeing Byleth’s expression, she cut herself off and buried her head in her hands in embarrassment. “Oh goddess, you really aren’t, are you? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. Can we just, pretend this conversation never happened?”

“Fine by me.” Issue the Third had been neatly solved, but that barely mattered when it was rapidly being eclipsed by Issue the Fourth: whatever the fuck this was. She took a swig of alcohol to avoid it for a moment longer.

Ingrid still looked absolutely mortified, so Byleth offered her the flask again. 

This time, she managed to keep it down with a minimum of coughing. “You know, I’m beginning to see the appeal of this thing,” she muttered. 

Byleth didn’t respond, mind reeling. Ingrid had thought she was in a relationship, with… well, presumably with Ashe since he was basically the only person Byleth ever spent much time with. And, granted, she had been spending a lot of time with him lately, and it had been very nice, but that didn’t mean… Really, she wasn’t _opposed_ to the idea, necessarily, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever said anything to indicate… Although, she would be first to admit that her grasp of social cues was unreliable at best… 

Byleth suddenly regretted agreeing to pretend the conversation hadn’t happened, as she was filled with the urge to interrogate Ingrid for an itemized list of the reasons why she’d made her assumption. Just for curiosity’s sake, of course. But alas, she was a woman of her word, so she settled for filing away Issue the Fourth as yet another problem for the Byleth of tomorrow.

And not a moment too soon, as Ashe was returning with two tankards of water.

“Here you go!” He cheerfully placed them on the table. The resounding silence seemed to cue him in to the vaguely uncomfortable atmosphere. “What’s wrong? Did I miss something?”

“No!” Both responded in unison, a bit too hastily. He looked skeptical, but didn’t argue the point, instead sitting back down next to Byleth. 

Awkward silence prevailed. She reached for the flask again… 

“...perhaps you should have some water first?” Ashe gently suggested. And dammit, he had a point. She grimaced and grabbed the tankard instead. “After all, you don’t want to be hungover for your sparring match with Lord Fraldarius.” Oh, right. That.

“I could still beat him,” Byleth muttered, drinking the water regardless. Huh, she’d forgotten how good water was.

“Hey, I wouldn’t be so sure. Felix talks big, but he can definitely back it up.” For all her complaining, Ingrid still jumped to defend her friend’s name. “Besides, he’ll never forgive you if he thinks you went easy on him, so make sure to bring your A game tomorrow.”

“Riiiiiiiight... What time is that at again?”

“Well, he said sunrise, but since he couldn’t lug his ass here to ask himself I think you can be a bit late.”

“...sunrise.” Byleth echoed flatly. She usually got up early, but if he wanted the spar to _start_ at sunrise… Her hazy perception put the current time somewhere between the hours of Late and Really Fucking Late, so it was high time to hit the hay.

She stood abruptly and- oh. Judging from the way the world rushed a bit, she was, indeed, drunk. Neat. She leaned a bit on the table as she adjusted to her compromised coordination.

“I’m heading out,” Byleth explained unnecessarily. She was forgetting something… oh! She pointed at Ashe. “We’ll read tomorrow. I promise.” 

Ingrid’s eyebrows rose, and she made meaningful eye contact with Byleth. “You two read together every night, then?” Dammit, apparently this was not lending believability to her assertions about Issue the Fourth. 

“Yes. Goodnight.” Byleth turned to leave, the curtness of her reply rather ruined by her unsteady movements.

“Here, I’ll walk back with you,” Ashe offered, getting up to walk beside her. Byleth could not see Ingrid’s reaction to this new development, which was probably just as well. “Besides, I guess I’ve got to get up early tomorrow too.”

“Oh? What for?”

“Why, to cheer you on, of course!” 

She glanced over, which was a _mistake_ because he was all _smiles_ and _green eyes_ and _freckles_ and it made her _feel things_ and it **_should not be allowed._ **

“...of course,” she echoed dumbly. She filed her reaction as yet another problem for the Byleth of Tomorrow to deal with. 

Along with Issues the First, Second, and Fourth. 

And an early-morning sparring match.

And, potentially, a hangover.

...shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, drinking alone when you are upset is a terrible plan. Byleth just happened to inherit Jeralt's questionable coping strategies.
> 
> And speaking of questionable coping strategies, Sylvain has arrived! He's one of my favorite characters, though that may not be apparent in this chapter. Sorry bud.
> 
> Fun fact: the common room bit was originally going to be part of the previous chapter, but it was moved to this one so the meeting would be 'on-screen'. I've still got a draft of the scene from Ashe's POV, and I kept most of the dialog the same. But hey, this way we get more Wasted Sothis Wisdom!


	11. On the Subjectivity of Openings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain makes an assumption, Ashe gets bullied, and Byleth tries out a new coping strategy.

There weren’t many things Ashe had liked about his old career, but at least he’d never had to wake up before sunrise.

Well, okay, he still didn’t _have_ to, per se. But he’d told Byleth that he would, and he’d like to think that his word meant something. So, yeah, he kinda had to. And besides, he was a bit worried about Byleth; he found it hard to believe that she had been upset enough to chug straight liquor just because Lord Gatier didn’t flirt with her. There had to be more to it than that. 

Unless, of course, she _really_ liked him… 

Which would be fine, of course, and in all honesty it was none of Ashe’s business. He knew he had no right to get jealous over a crush that he didn’t even have plans to act on. Just… if even half of the rumors about Lord Gatier were true, Byleth could do _way_ better. (Though, in all fairness, she could also do way better than Ashe. This was not a comforting thought.)

And now probably ten minutes had passed since he’d woken up, the sun was clearing the horizon, and he still wasn’t mentally prepared to start the day. Fucking hell. If he was ever challenged to a sunrise duel, Ashe decided, he’d just let the other guy stab him in his sleep. It’d be less painful in the long run.

Through the power of sheer determination, he somehow managed to roll off of the semisoft pile of bricks that qualified as a bed in the barracks, pull on all the layers he’d need to survive the frigid morning (why was the sun even _up_ if it wasn’t going to warm anything for hours?) and stumble to the training grounds. Luckily, he didn’t appear to be late, as the two were still warming up on the training dummies. He gave Byleth a wave and a forced smile before finding a spot to lean against one of the arena walls.

Just as he was debating the wisdom of resting his eyes for a few minutes (it’d be more relaxing, but he was liable to fall asleep) another figure sauntered into the training arena.

“‘Morning,” Lord Gatier greeted him, stretching in an exaggerated fashion. He was, of course, conspicuously wearing the same outfit as the day before. “You’re Ashe, right?” 

Oh dear, the noble knew his name. That never boded well. (He nodded nonetheless).

“Heh, figured as much.” What was that supposed to mean? “They’re still warming up, right? Did I miss anything?”

“No.” Oof, this was _not_ the proper etiquette for conversing with a member of the nobility. Part of Ashe winced a bit at his own rudeness, but the rest was too exhausted to care.

“Awesome. I didn’t want to be late, but it’s always so hard to leave ‘em in the morning, you know?” The insufferable man ended his sentence with a wink. Ugh.

“...sure.” From what Ashe had heard, he doubted the lord ever had any real qualms about leaving. Within all likelihood, the lord was just trying to brag about his exploits. But whatever; it really wasn’t his place to point that out, and in any case he was much too tired.

“Well _someone’s_ a bit moody this morning” Lord Gatier noted with a chuckle. “I guess you didn’t get much sleep last night either.”

Ashe sleepily nodded agreement. He would’ve preferred a few more hours; nothing good ever happens before noon.

Lord Gatier chuckled. “Hey, from what I’ve seen, I can’t say I blame ya.” He followed up his statement with another wink.

...what? Ashe wasn’t certain what the lord was trying to get at, but he also wasn’t awake enough to bother parsing it out. He settled for nodding again; that always seemed to work for Byleth.

“Although, _she_ still seems to have plenty of energy,” the young lord noted as Byleth practiced some quick slashes on a training dummy. He made a series of _tsk_ noises. “You’ll have to try harder next time, my friend. Or is she one to make you do all the work?”

Ashe blinked wearily at him, not quite following. Something about… Byleth being more awake?

“...Byleth’s a morning person,” he mumbled. Hopefully that answered the question, whatever the question was.

“Oh?” Lord Gatier looked confused for a moment, but then his smile widened. “A morning person, huh? Is _that_ why you’re so out of it right now?” 

Ashe didn’t respond, fatigue slowly giving way to alarm as it dawned on him that he no longer had any idea what they were talking about. 

The noble seemed to take his silence as some sort of confirmation, and gave him a delighted slap on the shoulder. “You lucky dog! Right before a spar, too! I’m impressed you managed to talk her into that one!”

Wait wait wait, what was happening? What had he apparently agreed to? Panic set in as he realized that there had been two different conversations going on this entire time, all while he had been barely awake enough for just one. He awoke rapidly as the adrenaline kicked in and he tried desperately to remember exactly what had been said-

. . .

Oh, _fuck._

Damn it all, he had to clear this up _immediately,_ for Byleth’s sake if not for his own. 

“I-”

“Oh, hey Ingrid!” Lord Gatier interrupted him as the noblewoman marched into the training grounds. Shit, the _last_ thing he needed was a _wider_ audience-

“ _Sylvain!”_ The smile slipped off the lord’s face as Lady Galatea’s anger became apparent. “Would you _care_ to explain to me why-”

The nobleman quickly moved to place Ashe between himself and his enraged friend. “Sorry, can’t talk to you right now, Ashe here was busy telling me about his morning. It was apparently _very_ eventful _._ ” 

_“don’t drag me into-”_ he hissed, but it was far too late.

The lady paused her tirade, curiosity outweighing anger. “What do you mean, ‘eventful’?”

Lord Gatier gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Well, Ashe, how about it? Care to give us the ~juicy details~?” 

Lady Galatea’s eyes widened, and briefly flicked towards Byleth. Oh no, oh no no no- 

“Look, there’s- there’s been a misunderstanding, we didn’t- I was tired, I didn’t realize what Lord Gatier was implying-” It was no use. Judging from Lord Gatier’s smug expression and Lady Galatea’s incredulous one, neither one was buying a word of it. Dammit. This must be it, the divine punishment for his past wrongdoings: to explain to two nobles that he had _not,_ in fact, slept with his crush. 

The goddess sure was one sick bastard. 

“Listen, I… Nothing’s happened, between me and Byleth. Even if you don’t believe me, could you at least… not go spreading things?” It seemed like he might finally be getting through to them, as the cocky smile slowly faded off Lord Gatier’s face.

“I… of course, man. I was only teasing, I know you weren’t listening to a word I said.” At that admittance, Lady Galatea socked him in the arm with a mutter that Ashe didn’t quite catch. Ignoring her, the lord frowned. “I guess it’s not really my business, but when you say ‘nothing’... I thought you guys were-”

“-Yes, well, um. I _might_ have been wrong about that.” Lady Galatea interjected sheepishly. Wait a minute.

Ashe’s eyes narrowed. “Wrong about wha-”

“Oh, look, the match is starting!” The noblewoman announced loudly, in an obvious bid to change the subject. 

...fine. He wasn’t entirely sure he could handle whatever new madness would be revealed if the conversation continued. 

The spar started, and it quickly became clear that while both participants were quite skilled, Lord Fraldarius was just a bit faster. Byleth managed some quick wins at the beginning, but once the lord became accustomed to her fighting style it all went downhill. At least Byleth was making him work hard for his victories; Ashe could finally understand why the swordsmaster had been so excited to find a new opponent.

After yet another consecutive win for Lord Fraldarius, the two combatants met in the center of the arena for some kind of discussion. 

Lord Gatier immediately took advantage of the pause. “Sooooo, Ingrid, when you say you were wrong-”

“I said I _might be_ wrong,” she snapped. Then, in a lower voice, “Still not entirely convinced, to be honest…”

“Ingrid! I’m shocked at you!” Lord Gatier gasped overdramatically. “And here I’ve been missing out on so many valuable opportunities! I’ll bet she’s feeling absolutely neglected!” Ah, so this was about Byleth, then. Ashe wasn’t sure which he hated more; Lord Gatier’s phrasing, or the fact that he was apparently at least somewhat correct.

“And _I’ll_ bet she’s happier for it,” Lady Galatea shot back. The lord just smirked in response.

There were many things Ashe wanted to say. He wanted to ask for more clarification on _exactly what_ Lady Galatea had been wrong about. He wanted to ask what Lord Gatier’s intentions with Byleth were. He wanted, on some level, to make it clear that breaking his close friend’s heart would _not be tolerated_ , and stabbing nobles may not be his career anymore but by the goddess he still knew how to do it.

He said none of these things, which was probably for the best. 

In the arena, the fighters shook hands and the match resumed. 

At first, it seemed just the same as the previous rounds, with both fighters aggressively slashing and parrying back and forth. Lord Fraldarious found an opening, went for an overhead strike- Byleth blocked it with her sword-

And kicked him square in the stomach.

The nobleman stumbled backwards, and Byleth was able to easily knock him down with another hit. She watched impassively as the lord took a minute to catch his breath, then started to stumble to his feet.

Ashe, meanwhile, was in a state between shock and full-blown panic. He didn’t know _too_ much about the rules of friendly sparring matches, but he was fairly certain that such tactics were disallowed. And in a match against a _noble lord…_

To be fair, Ashe could sort his past interactions with nobles into two categories; those he was trying to kill them, and those where they were offering him loads of money to kill someone else. He knew that he had probably been seeing the nobility at its worst. But still, there were commoners who would break a man’s jaw for cheating at cards, and there were nobles who would hang a man for not bowing low enough. He wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen here, but… well, he did have some weapons on him, if it came to that.

He glanced quickly at the two nobles beside him. Lady Galatea looked pissed, but Lord Gatier just looked… amused?

“Goddamit Felix,” he heard the lady mutter. “If we have to fetch a healer _again-”_

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Ingrid?” Lord Gatier asked gleefully, holding out a hand.

She leveled him with a flat stare. “You bet me he’d _change_ the rules, not just remove them entirely!”

The lord simply raised his eyebrows. After another moment of hesitation, she passed over a few coins with a scowl.

...well, then. Apparently it was fine. Maybe he was still asleep and this was all some kind of fever dream (that would explain a lot, actually). Still a bit on edge, he turned his attention back to the fight.

From that point onwards, the tables had turned and Byleth was the one racking up consistent victories. While Lord Fraldarius was visibly improving at combating the underhanded tactics she employed, he was always just a step behind. It seemed that professional swordsmanship training was no substitute for a lifetime of practical fighting, where the only rule was ‘kill the other guy first’.

At least Lord Fraldarius didn’t appear to be a sore loser. In fact, he seemed thrilled to finally be beaten. (When Ashe commented on this aloud, Lord Gatier simply nodded and remarked “Yeah, he’s a bit of a masochist, our Felix.” Lady Galatea responded by smacking the lord on the shoulder.)

(After that, Ashe elected to keep his thoughts to himself.)

But perhaps there was some truth to Lord Gatier’s statement, as it took at least another hour of being knocked into the dirt for Lord Fraldarius to finally call an end to the sparring session. After that came at least half an hour of congratulating both fighters, chatting, and general socialization that would’ve been _far_ more enjoyable had Ashe’s early wake up time not come back around to sock him in the face. As things stood, he was so exhausted by the end that he had to turn down Byleth’s request for more dagger practice in favor of limping back to the barracks for a nap.

Well, it had been an... eventful morning, but he passed out certain of just one thing: he was never getting up that early again.

===========================

Ashe didn’t see Byleth for the rest of the day, which wasn’t terribly unexpected since he’d spent the better part of it sleeping. But now it was well past sundown, there was still no sign of her in the common room or surrounding areas, and he was getting just a bit worried.

Taking another look around the common room, he quickly spotted Jesse and Deen seated at one of the tables, as usual. Also as usual, they were accompanied by a gang of other mercenaries and a large jug of shitty beer. He made his way over to the table and waited for a lull in the conversation.

“Hey, either of you know where Byleth is?” Probably not, but it was worth a shot. Maybe her and Jeralt got called off on some business or other.

“Probably in Gatier’s quarters,” Deen declared bluntly. Jesse elbowed him sharply.

Ashe felt his stomach drop. “...what?”

“That’s- We don’t, _know_ that, for certain, but…” Jesse began awkwardly. “Well... she walked off with him about an hour ago, so-”

“They’re probably fucking.” Deen contributed. “Pass me the jug?”

Jesse shot him a Look, but passed it nonetheless.

“But she- they-” Ashe took a deep breath and tried to dismiss the dreadful feeling he’d gotten. It was completely possible that this was just… official mercenary business. Maybe something to do with the meeting the previous day.

Noticing his distress, Jesse reached across the table to give him a vaguely reassuring pat on the arm. “Buck up, it’s not like Gatier’s serious. She’ll still be single in the morning, I guarantee it.”

“That’s not…” Ashe began, but was interrupted by a loud scoff from Deen. Dammit, he should never have told these two about his crush. “...whatever. I’m going to go look for her, maybe she’s around somewhere.”

“Sure, sure,” Jesse replied in a placating tone that suggested he didn’t believe a lick of it. With friends like these…

After another lap of the common room and mess hall turned up nothing, he wandered outside. Even with his coat it was positively frigid, and the wind certainly wasn’t helping. He hoped like hell Byleth wasn’t out here, she’d probably freeze. Though, he also hoped she _was_ out here because it meant she wasn’t... other places.

This was stupid. He had no right to be upset, or jealous, or whatever dumb combination of emotions he was getting. Besides, Byleth knew damn Lord Gatier wasn’t serious, it wouldn’t be some sort of heartbreaking surprise. Loath as he was to admit it, Jesse had a point. 

He was just kind of wandering aimlessly now, trying to outpace his anxious thoughts. From a logical standpoint, this was fine, it changed nothing. (From an emotional standpoint, he kind of wanted to cry.) 

Oh, and he’d have to avoid Lord Gatier tomorrow, because if the noble started bragging again... well, Ashe might just need to punch him, and who knew what kind of mess that would cause. Though, at least he was fairly sure Lady Galatea would back him up. Heck, she might even punch the lord too.

Ashe was shaken from his thoughtful moping as he noticed a figure standing in the middle of the courtyard. Huh, it almost looked like Byleth. 

...actually…

He felt a flood of relief; Byleth was standing in the very center of the clearing, and appeared to be staring at something overhead. Ashe hurried over, attempting to appear unconcerned. (He wasn’t convinced that he succeeded, but that hardly mattered.)

“Hey, Byleth.” She didn’t answer. He frowned and tried to follow her gaze. “What’s going on? Did you see something?” Hopefully they weren’t under attack, he wasn’t sure he had the energy for that right now.

She shook herself back to reality. “No… just looking at the stars.”

Ashe glanced back up, frowning slightly. She’d picked a suboptimal night for stargazing; large, wispy clouds were covering most of the visible sky and illuminating the glow of the crescent moon. To top it off, the ‘visible sky’ itself was rather small, as their field of vision was being harshly constrained by the surrounding buildings and walls of the fort. No wonder Byleth was craning her neck in the middle of the clearing.

“You’ve picked an odd night for it,” he observed. She just hummed noncommittally in response.

Well, he couldn’t do much about the clouds, but maybe he could fix the other issue. “Would it help if you were higher up?”

She looked at him curiously.

“There’s an unused watchtower on the western side of the fort.” He’d stumbled upon it the day before. “Might be a better view from up there.” Also potentially a little warmer, if the walls blocked the wind.

Byleth considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Lead the way.”

It was just a few minutes walk to the vacant watchtower. He wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t been aware of it; the layout of the surrounding buildings made it easy to miss.

“I noticed it when I was taking Kelpie to the stable the other day,” Ashe explained as they approached the structure. “It faces away from the border, so it’s not in use right now. Apparently this fort’s changed hands a lot, it was probably built during Sreng’s occupation.” 

“...isn’t the stable in the other direction?”

“Yes, well, I know that _now_.” 

She huffed a bit in subdued amusement. Hm. Perhaps it had just been the fault of the alcohol that she’d laughed properly the night before. Still, he hoped she would do it again sometime, though he doubted it would happen today. She seemed a bit down for some reason.

Byleth tried the tower door, which merely rattled a bit. “It’s locked.” 

Oh. Perhaps he should’ve checked first. She sounded so disappointed...

“Well, ah, it doesn’t, _have_ to be locked, necessarily.” He fished his set of lockpicks out of a hidden coat pocket, pausing to gauge her reaction.

She raised her eyebrows slightly. “I suppose not.” Right, they were in business.

“In fact,” he continued, walking up to the door, “I think it’s _completely_ possible that someone forgot to relock it at some point.”

“Easy to forget such things,” she agreed sagely. He made an effort not to laugh as he started picking the lock.

“And it isn’t as if” - oh, good, this was a simple one - “there are any signs around” - almost had it - “saying that this tower is restricted.” - done. - “So, seeing as it was unlocked when we got here” - he opened the door with a flourish - “there’s really no reason we can’t use it.”

Byleth blinked, looking almost impressed. “That was quick.”

“Yes, well, I’ve had a lot of practice.” He gestured to the entrance. “After you.”

It didn’t take long to climb the circling staircase to the roof of the stone tower. As he’d hoped, from this height it was possible to see all the way to the horizon. Unfortunately, while their vantage point was improved, the subject itself was not. Clouds still covered most of the sky, with just a few errant stars peeking through the gaps. The wispy glow from the moonlight reflecting through the clouds was itself quite lovely, but he suspected that wasn’t what Byleth was looking for.

“Perhaps we should try tomorrow,” he offered tentatively as she stared blankly at one of the few cloudless patches. “It might be clearer then.”

No response. Hmm.

“Is there a particular reason you wanted to stargaze tonight?” There had to be, no one would choose such a cloudy night on a whim. 

“It’s… comforting.” She murmured.

Comforting? “Has something been troubling you?”

She hesitated, then gave a single nod. Okay, then.

He was almost scared to ask, but… “...um, is this about Lord Gatier?” 

To his surprise, she huffed a short laugh as she shook her head. 

He couldn’t help but smile a bit in relief. Though… “Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any other guesses.”

She just shook her head again. He waited to see if she’d elaborate on the problem, but… no luck. It certainly seemed like she didn’t want to talk about it, whatever it was. It was worrying; she generally seemed unfazed by everything, but her behavior last night and today suggested that something was truly upsetting her.

“Is there any way I can help?”

Another shake. Dammit. He hated not being able to do anything.

“Would you like a hug?” he offered. At that, she finally tore her eyes away from the sky above to look at him. “I mean, it won’t fix anything, but… I don’t know, maybe it’ll make you feel better?” 

“...okay.”

Uncertainly, Byleth moved forwards to loosely wrap her arms around him. He wondered when the last time she’d hugged someone was. After all, neither Byleth nor her father seemed inclined towards physical contact. With that in mind, he kept his returning embrace quite loose as well. 

Ashe honestly only expected the hug to last a few seconds, but thus far she didn’t seem inclined to break it off, so maybe it was helping. He certainly hoped so.

“Byleth, I… I don't really know what’s wrong but, I’m sure you’ll get through it.” He whispered softly. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

She didn’t noticeably react, but he supposed that it was just an empty reassurance...

“Just... remember you aren’t alone, okay?” The words seemed to come all on their own. “I’ll always be here to help if you need it. I promise.” His heart clenched with the knowledge of how hard such promises were to keep; his parents had made a similar one so long ago. But perhaps it was the intent behind the words that was more important. The comfort of knowing that someone cared enough to try.

Byleth seemed to agree as she finally started to relax into the hug, leaning against him and pushing her face into his shoulder. He held her a little tighter in response, feeling the rise and fall of her chest against his. This was a level of vulnerability that he’d never seen from her. It was a bittersweet kind of emotion that he felt then; the joy of providing comfort weighed against the regret that such comfort was needed. 

Ashe knew from a practical standpoint that they’d have to part eventually. But for the moment, he couldn’t think of any compelling reason not to hold her forever.

It might’ve been several hours that passed then. It might’ve been mere seconds. 

But the night was cold, and the wind was biting, and nothing good ever lasts as long as one would like.

Regretfully, he drew back and gave her a soft smile. “We should head inside, it’s getting late.”

She nodded, and he turned away to head towards the staircase. He reached the third step before noticing that she still hadn’t moved to follow him.

He glanced back. “...everything okay?”

Byleth jumped a bit, then visibly shook herself. “Yeah, I just… nevermind.” She strode past him down the stairs. “We should hurry, still have to read after all.”

He chucked. “I told you before, it’s okay to skip some days if you’re not feeling up to it.” 

“I promised, though,” she declared, voice echoing up the twisting stairwell. “And I keep my promises.”

“Yeah,” he replied softly, perhaps too softly to be heard. “So do I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if... we hugged... in the vacant watchtower? haha jk...  
> ...unless????
> 
> There's admittedly not a whole lot of overt plot development in this chapter, but I had fun writing it. Sometimes we all just need some dumb shenanigans.
> 
> (For anyone who wasn't aware, Jesse and Deen are from FE Echoes. I'm probably not going to tag them since they're basically just here as background characters, but if you want a visual there you go.)


	12. On the Subjectivity of Blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeralt starts a fight, Ashe receives an invitation, Sothis fails her wingman duties, and Byleth speaks her mind.

It had been five long years, but Sothis still didn’t really understand Byleth sometimes.

The situation at the fort was, to put it mildly, going to shit. Sreng was definitely still attempting to sway the troops to their side, as just this morning another advertisement had been found crumpled in a waste bin. Hopefully it was the only one, and whoever had seen it hadn’t taken it seriously. For as they’d learned from Sylvain yesterday, there would be no shuffling of troops, no pay increase, and no backup until the Knights of Seiros arrived. Assuming, of course, that they arrived at all.

Point was, there were plenty of reasonable, important things for her mortal companion to be stressing about. And yet, a brief scan of her thoughts revealed...

Oh, for fuck’s sake. _Would you_ **_stop obsessing_ ** _over the_ **_stupid_ ** _hug?!_

Byleth jumped a bit, startled out of her reminiscing. It took a few moments for her to recover, but once she did, she quickly became defensive. _Hey, it was a good hug!_

_Yes, yes, I’m sure it was, but there are more pressing matters at hand._ Honestly, you’d think she’d never had a hug before yesterday.

...actually, come to think of it, she probably hadn’t. At least not one she remembered. But still!

_Yeah, more pressing matters that I can’t do shit about,_ Byelth shot back.

Sothis raised her eyebrows, not that anyone could see. _Oh, and you’re planning to do something about this?_

_Well, no, but… But I could! If I wanted to!_

_Sure, sure, of course you could,_ Sothis responded in the most patronizing tone she could muster. 

_Fuck off,_ Byleth muttered halfheartedly. She hesitated for a moment or two before adding, _look, I am taking this Sreng thing seriously, I promise. There just really isn’t anything else I can do but wait for a fight._

Byleth was right, of course. Sothis knew she was. But she’d be damned if she was going to admit that.

There was a suspicious silence. Sothis probed a bit, and sure enough…

_Seriously? You know, you could just ask for another hug._

_I almost did,_ Byleth thought back sulkily. _You talked me out of it, remember?_   
  


She did remember doing that, though she wouldn’t have if she’d known Byleth was going to make sure a big deal of it. _I meant you could ask_ **_now._ **

_...nah. That sounds stressful._ Honestly, why did Sothis even bother?

_Fine, have it your way,_ she grumbled. _Just let me know when there’s an update on the fort situation, okay?_

===========================

As fortune would have it, an update came just the next day, when Byleth was invited to yet another secretive strategy meeting. She must have arrived a bit late, as the discussion could already be heard from the hallway outside the room.

“A week? They really can’t get here any sooner?” She heard Sylvain’s voice first; he sounded a bit distressed. Hm.

“I am afraid not,” replied a somewhat familiar voice. “In truth, you should be grateful that the Knights are being sent at all.”

They (well, Byleth really) entered the room to find Jeralt and Sylvain conversing with the wyvern rider they’d met on the journey. All three looked over as she entered, and Jeralt gave her a brief nod before turning back to the discussion.

“If you could rush even part of-” Jeralt began, before being rather rudely interrupted.

“We cannot risk our forces by splitting them up. I am sorry, but a week is truly the best I can do.” 

“Can’t split- _you_ flew ahead, Seteth!” Oh, so that was the man’s name. Good to know. She’d have to remember it this time, since it seemed like it may actually be relevant. (For all that she gave Byleth grief for it, Sothis was also absolute shit at names. Hell, she’d forgotten Byleth’s name the first few times she was told.)

“Yes, well… that is different.”

_“How,_ Seteth? How is it different?” Jeralt sounded completely done.

“Can we maybe get back on topic? Please?” Sylvain interjected hopefully.

“No. There is nothing more to say. This is non negotiable. I am sorry.” Despite his words, Seteth did not sound very sorry. Having fulfilled his professional obligation, the man turned to Byleth. “I do not believe we have been formally introduced. I am Seteth, advisor to Archbishop Rhea.”

“...I’m Byleth,” she replied cautiously with a glance over at Jeralt, who was openly scowling at the other man.

“And you are Sitri’s daughter, is that correct?”

_“Seteth-”_ Jeralt muttered through gritted teeth.

“I am just asking a question. There is no need to get cross with me.”

“Oh yes there is. You know damn well what I’m cross about.”

Sylvain coughed. “Look, I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here, but I’m preeeeetty sure it’s none of my business, so uh… I’m gonna go.” He awkwardly slipped out of the room as Seteth and Jeralt glared at each other.

_...I don’t suppose I could leave too?_ Byleth asked hopefully.

_Byleth, I hate to break it to you, but may be directly about you. Now hush, I’m trying to pay attention._

“Actually, I do not. In fact, if anyone has a right to be upset, it is I.”

“Oh _is_ it now?” Jeralt’s tone was downright frosty.

_Sothis, I hear you and I get what you’re saying, but I don’t really want to be here._

“It is. Sitri was practically family to us, and for you to just abscond with her only child-”

“Byleth is my child too, Seteth,” he was raising his voice now, “and if you knew even half of what Rhea-”

Sothis didn’t reply, though she silently agreed that this conversation (if it could still be called that) was quickly devolving from ‘interesting’ to ‘uncomfortable’. 

“Rhea loved Sitri like a daughter-”

“Oh _did_ she now?!” Jeralt practically spat the words.

_I heard people pray to the goddess for help, sometimes,_ Byleth remarked meaningfully.

“-and then _you_ took away the only remaining-” Seteth was practically yelling too at this point.

_That’s absurd,_ Sothis scoffed. _If this ‘goddess’ even exists, I doubt she’d care enough to bail you out of this._

“Rhea can cry me a fucking river! If she gave two shits about Sitri, then-”

_Do you have a better idea, Sothis?_

“Then _what_ , Jeralt? What could she possibly have done differently? Honestly, if it was anyone’s fault it was yours, you _knew_ how her health was.”

Silence.

_Actually, you know what, it’s worth a shot,_ Sothis hastily decided. _Go for it._

_“How. Dare. You.”_ Jeralt’s words were barely louder than a whisper. Seteth’s expression faltered slightly, but he defiantly crossed his arms and raised his chin nonetheless. Oh dear. 

The tension was broken by a knock on the door. A second later, Ingrid peered in. “Excuse me, sorry to interrupt the meeting, but I need to borrow Byleth for a bit.”

**_Holy shit it worked._ **

Sothis, for her part, was too surprised to respond.

Unfortunately, Seteth was not. “Do you mind, Lady Galatea? We are in the middle of a discussion.” His response was prim and dignified, a far cry from the shouting match of a few seconds ago.

Ingrid sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose if she’s busy it can’t be helped. I guess you can explain to Felix later why he didn’t have a sparring partner today.”

Seteth’s expression faltered.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you can make it up to him somehow,” Ingrid pressed casually. “Maybe you could spar with him tomorrow, you know he’d be thrilled about that. You never did agree to train with him while we were at school, did you? And he asked… how many times, again?”

Seteth stared into space for a moment, in his eyes the pain of years of dealing with this sort of high-level bullshit. Sothis knew the feeling well.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he caved. “...right, well, perhaps it would be best for Byleth to get some more practice in, if she doesn’t mind-”

“I don’t mind,” Byleth hastily confirmed, already walking towards the door.

“...yes. Quite.” Seteth still seemed a bit thrown off, while Jeralt was too busy glaring at him to really care much about this new development.

Once they were safely out of earshot, Ingrid breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe that worked, honestly. I guess Felix must’ve really annoyed him back at the academy.” Ah, so it _had_ just been an excuse. 

“...thank you.” Well, at least Byleth was being polite.

Ingrid waved a hand dismissively. “It’s no trouble. Sylvain told us that you probably needed to be bailed out of that.” Her expression changed to one of concern. “I heard some shouting… is everything alright?”

“Probably.”

Ingrid waited a few moments, possibly to see if Byleth would elaborate. Predictably, she did not.

“Well, um. I’m going to go meet up with Felix and Sylvain at the mess hall for lunch. You can come along too, if you’d like.”

“Thanks, but… I told Ashe I’d get lunch with him today.” Wait, what?

_You did?! When was this?_

_Yesterday, while we were practicing with the throwing knives. I guess that you were asleep for that?_ At least she had the decency to sound a bit sheepish.

_You need to keep me informed about these things,_ Sothis scolded. Byleth returned to her conversation with Ingrid, but Sothis was no longer listening.

Honestly, this was probably a positive development, all things considered. The last few times they’d met up to read, Sothis had had to listen to Byleth privately whining about the fact that they had almost finished the book. The issue seemed to be that, while she wanted to know how it ended, completing the story would mean losing the best excuse she had to spend time with Ashe every day. Sothis had assumed her attempt to explain that one generally didn’t _need_ to make excuses to hang out with one’s friends had fallen on deaf ears, but perhaps she’d actually taken it to heart.

Still… Sothis hated missing new developments in Byleth’s life, even if she couldn’t quite explain why it bothered her. Perhaps it was because in her current state she couldn’t really do anything except communicate with her mortal companion. Watching and influencing Byleth’s life was about as close as she could get to living a life of her own. 

_Oh, um, by the way,_ Byleth interrupted her thoughts. _I wanted to ask you about something._

Sothis waited.

_I was wondering if… Well, it’s a new moon tomorrow, and it’s actually looking to be pretty clear for once, so…_

_...so we’re stargazing, right?_ She did not see any cause for confusion.

_Right, yes, but, um…_ Byleth paused for a moment, and Sothis could detect a strong combination of nervousness and embarrassment. Never a good sign.

_Just spit it out, already._

_...do you mind if Ashe comes along?_

Ah. _What, my company’s not enough for you?_

Sothis said it in a joking tone, but in all honesty, she did mind a little bit. Stargazing had always kinda been Their Thing, and she wasn’t quite excited about being demoted to a third wheel for it. 

_That’s not what I meant,_ Byleth protested. _I mean, I was going to ask him to unlock the watchtower again, and it would be kinda rude not to include him after that, I think, and... I don’t know, I thought it might be fun?_

Something about the hopefulness in her tone made Sothis reconsider. She should probably just be happy that Byleth valued her opinion on the topic enough to ask, seeing as Sothis couldn’t actually stop her either way. And hey, she could always just tune them out and stargaze alone.

_Alright, fine,_ she relented. Then, in a burst of pettiness: _I suppose it’s okay if you bring your boyfriend along._

She drifted back to sleep to the soothing tones of Byleth’s sputtering protests.

===========================

The tower, it turned out, had not been relocked since they’d used it last. Sothis idly wondered if perhaps it had been left unused because no one actually had the key.

But in any case, the three of them were now at the top of the watchtower, staring at the vast ocean of stars above them. 

“...I never noticed how many stars there were,” Ashe remarked, sounding a bit awed. 

Byleth just hummed a bit in agreement. Without the moon or other nearby settlements, the only light source was a very faint glow from torches in the fort below them. As such, it was nearly pitch black, and even the faintest of stars and galaxies were clearly visible.

After a brief silence, Ashe spoke up again. “That really bright star up there is... Sirius, right?”

Byleth turned to look. “It is,” she confirmed. “I thought you said you didn’t know much about the stars.”

“Well, ah, I only know that one and the north star,” he replied sheepishly. “Oh, and the two dippers, I guess.” 

“I see.”

There was another minute of silence.

“So, um… is Sirius in a constellation?” Ashe asked. Sothis couldn’t quite discern whether he was genuinely curious, or just trying to strike up a conversation. “I just realized I don’t actually know.”

Byleth nodded. “Yep. Canis Major.” 

Oh, wow, apparently she’d actually been paying attention all these years. Sothis felt a burst of pride on her companion’s behalf.

“You mentioned they all have stories associated with them, right? Do you know that one?”

“Of course,” she replied confidently.

_...you do know it, right Sothis?_

Aaaaaand just like that, the proud feeling was gone. But whatever, she did love telling these stories, and it’d be neat to have a new audience member. She stared at the constellation and tried to remember… Canis major, the dog… 

Sothis began to tell the story, as Byleth passed it along.

“Long ago, there was a renowned hunting dog that the gods gifted with great speed. It was fated to catch any animal it hunted. One day, the dog was sent after a troublesome fox, which was fated never to be caught by any creature. The dog began chasing the fox, but it soon became clear that the chase would never end; the dog could never lose its quarry, and the fox could never be caught. They ran endlessly, passing through the furthest reaches of the world many times over, until one of the gods stepped in to end the chase. He honored the dog by placing it into the sky as a constellation, to follow the hunter Orion for eternity.”

Ashe was silent for a few moments, taking in the story. Finally, he asked, “what happened to the fox?” 

...oh dear. She had the feeling this was not going to go over well.

_...well?_

_Er…_ Sadly, Sothis didn’t feel capable of making up something on the fly. _The fox got turned into a stone._

_...a stone._

_Yep._

_Like a mountain or some kind of monument?_

_Nope. Just a regular rock._

Byleth reluctantly passed on this information. 

“That’s not really fair to the fox, is it? He was just trying to get away.” Ashe sounded slightly upset. Upset! On the behalf of a fictional animal! It truly boggled the mind.

“Yeah… I suppose not,” Byleth conceded.

Silence.

_...great story, Sothis._

_Don’t complain to me! I didn’t write it!_ Sothis protested.

_No, it’s fine. I’m sure a former thief loved hearing a story about a fox getting killed._

Ugh, stupid humans and their stupid symbolism. That was hardly _her_ fault, though!

_Oh I’m sorry, was a centuries-old story not conducive to whatever mood you wanted here?_ She was getting a bit defensive, sure, but not without good reason. _Perhaps I could tell a different one instead! Maybe he’d like the epic tale of Triangulum, you ever hear about that one?_

_Yes, you’ve told me-_

_It’s a fucking triangle!_

_I’m aware-_

**_Three bloody dots!_ **

_Okay, okay, I get it! Just… help me out here?_ She seemed a bit stressed.

Thankfully, they were both spared the excruciating task of finding a new topic of conversation.

“So, um, you know a bunch of constellations, right? Do you have a favorite one?”

“A favorite…” Byleth thought furiously, but to her credit didn’t ask Sothis for help this time. 

Seeing as no answer was forthcoming, Ashe tried again. “How about this, do you have a _least_ favorite?”

“Oh, Triangulum for sure,” Byleth replied easily. Well, at least she and Sothis had some things in common.

“I haven’t heard of that one. Where is it?” 

Byleth shook her head and just waved a hand at the sky above. “Barely matters, it’s literally a triangle. Just pick any three you’d like.”

Ashe huffed a bit in amusement, and Sothis could feel Byleth’s mood lift. “I suppose you have to admire the audacity, though.”

“No, I don’t.” Emboldened, she continued. “Eridanus is also a bit stupid, it’s supposed to be a river.”

“...so, a string of dots?”

“Yep. Not even in a straight line."

“Maybe they just needed to use up the extra ones, between the other constellations,” he suggested, half-jokingly.

“Maybe. Still, you’d think…”

Well, it seemed like Byleth had this under control. Sothis tuned out the Dumbass Duo and floated up a bit higher to view the multitude of lights in blessed silence.

===========================

Some time later (Sothis was unsure how long, the passage of time had always seemed a bit odd to her) they exited the tower. The two humans paused a moment to adjust to the relative brightness of the torchlight streaming through nearby windows before setting off towards the building that housed the barracks and common room.

Sothis tuned in to their ongoing conversation as she looked around. Not that there was much to see, mind. She already missed the stars.

“I can’t believe it’s only been a month,” Ashe was saying. 

“Over a month,” Byleth corrected. “The moon was still a crescent when you broke in.”

Sothis glanced behind them, and did a double take.

_Er, Byleth? That asshole from yesterday is here._ What was his name… _Seteth._

_Weird. Does it matter?_ She didn’t sound terribly concerned.

“Yeah, well, I was working on a deadline. You would never have seen me if I’d waited an extra few nights.”

Byleth hummed noncommittally. “Perhaps.”

_...probably not. But he’s making a very amusing face._ Seteth was standing a good distance away, but she could just make out his expression of open-mouthed shock.

“Someone’s awfully confident,” Ashe noted with a slight laugh, blissfully unaware of their observer. “I guess it worked out alright in the end, though.”

“It did,” Byleth readily agreed. 

Meanwhile, Seteth seemed to recover from his surprise. His face hardened into a scowl, and he turned on his heel and stalked off. _Never mind, you missed it. He’s leaving now._

_Good._

After a minute or two of walking in silence, Ashe spoke up again. “Um, Byleth?”

“Yes?”

“I… know the circumstances weren’t ideal, but... I’m glad I met you.”

Her returning smile was slight, but positively radiant. “So am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how some chapters practically write themselves? This was not one of those chapters. I'm pretty sure I changed the tower conversation five different times, and then ended up back at the first one I wrote. Send help.
> 
> More constellation nonsense! Useless fun fact: In one draft of the chapter, Byleth named Orion as her favorite constellation with the reasoning that it actually looks like what it's supposed to. Ashe's favorite would be the little dipper, because it contains the north star. I'd imagine he spent quite a lot of his life in this AU traveling alone, so being able to navigate was important.


	13. On the Subjectivity of Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seteth lodges a complaint, Jeralt makes a threat, Ashe makes an accusation, and Byleth is very confused.

It hadn’t even been a week, and it was already clear that this was not the straightforward assignment Jeralt had hoped for.

The most worrying part of the very worrying whole was that Sreng hadn’t mounted a single attack since their arrival. To be fair, it  _ was _ possible that they were simply focusing their forces elsewhere, or gathering their strength for a unified assault. However, it was far more likely that they were expecting the recruitment campaign to work, and were  _ counting  _ on having a high number of troops in this fort to sway to their side. And, despite the urgency of the situation, it seemed that the Knights of Seiros certainly were taking their sweet time getting up here. Must’ve gotten lazy since he’d left. Shameful, truly.

There was just one positive to this whole mess, and that was that Byleth seemed to be happy. For her sake and hers alone he was willing to put up with this shitshow.

A pointed cough shook him from his silent contemplation. Jeralt looked up from the small table upon which he was completing the finance paperwork (his least favorite part of the job) to find Seteth standing awkwardly a few feet away.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other.

“First of all,” Seteth began carefully, “I’d like to apologize for my words the other day.”

Jeralt waited.

Seteth paused, considering his words.

“Well, go on then,” Jeralt prompted after a moment.

“Yes. Quite.” He shook himself, and took a deep breath. “Sitri’s death was a shock to us all, as you know. Though I disagree with your actions after her death, it was inappropriate of me to suggest that you knowingly endangered her in any way.” His tone grew somber. “Sitri knew her situation better than anyone, and… while the outcome was tragic, her choices were her own. There was nothing any of us could have done. I… suppose I still have trouble accepting that, but I should not have taken it out on you. I am sorry.” 

The level of apparent sincerity took him by surprise. In truth, he couldn’t really fault Seteth for being upset about his unannounced departure from the monastery. He was just worried about what would happen to his daughter if Rhea found her again, and having Seteth here put him on edge. 

Jeralt took a shaky breath. “Yeah, I think we both sort of took things too far. I shouldn’t have tried to pick a fight over nothing. I was out of line.”

Seteth nodded in grave agreement. There was a companionable silence.

Finally, he sighed. “Alright, out with it. What’s this really about? We both know you didn’t come here just to apologize.”

“You don’t know that. Perhaps I wanted to make amends with an old friend.”

…

“...but, since you did mention it...” ah, there it was. Seteth straightened. “I’m afraid I must object to how you are raising your daughter.”

_ “Excuse me?” _

“It is all well and good to give her a bit of freedom, but you must at the very least offer some level of guidance,” he lectured. “Especially when it comes to, ah, interpersonal relationships. It is your duty to impress upon her the importance of being critical of others’ intentions.”

Jeralt stared blankly at him.

Seteth rolled his eyes. “I am  _ saying,” _ he hissed, “that you should not be allowing her to  _ consort _ with- with unscrupulous individuals!”

Ah. So that’s what this was about. “Byleth’s an adult, she can look after herself.” He frowned. “And I think ‘unscrupulous’ might be going a bit far. Sylvain’s kind of a lot at times, but his heart’s in the right place.” Which, on a purely literal level, was more than could be said for Byleth.

“I was not referring to the young Lord Gatier,” Seteth replied tersely. “Though, it would be wise for her to keep a distance from him as well. I have instructed my younger sister, Flayn-”

So he was still maintaining that old lie, huh? He waved a hand dismissively. “You can just call her your daughter, I already know.” 

Seteth stared back at him in open-mouthed shock. 

“Sitri told me,” he elaborated.

“...I had  _ thought _ that she knew how to keep a secret,” Seteth remarked with a scowl.

“You want to take it up with her? Only, I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that now.”

Seteth opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head. “Let’s not start this again, we’re getting off topic.”

“Fine.”

“As I was  _ saying, _ before I was so  _ rudely _ interrupted… you should not be allowing your daughter to associate so closely with Mr. Ubert.”

‘Mr. Ubert’, who the fuck was… “...Ashe?” he asked, incredulous. This was completely unexpected; he wasn’t aware Seteth even knew the archer. 

Jeralt considered. On one hand, he trusted Ashe about as far as he could throw him; on the other hand, he could probably throw him pretty dang far. And besides, he’d be damned if he was going to let  _ Seteth _ question his parenting choices. 

“Look, I know his previous career was less than honorable, but he’s honestly caused fewer headaches than most of my mercenaries.” He’d also caused fewer headaches than Seteth, but no need to rub that in.

“You  _ know?”  _ He appeared absolutely flabbergasted. “And here I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps you were simply... unaware of his criminal past. But as it stands, this is borderline negligent-”

Jeralt held up a hand. “I’m gonna cut you off right there. It isn’t my business who Byleth decides to befriend, and it certainly isn’t yours either.” 

“Befriend? Are you truly so blind?” He leaned forwards and lowered his voice. “Yesterday, I was walking by the western watchtower-”

“There’s a western watchtower?”

_ “Not the point. _ The point is, I saw them leaving the western watchtower last night. Just the two of them. Together.” He lowered his voice further, almost to a hiss.  _ “After sunset.” _

Oh. Goddess above, mere words did not even  _ begin _ to describe how little he wanted to think about the implications of  _ that.  _ But, well, “...I suppose there are worse places,” he muttered under his breath.

Predictably, this was not the correct response. 

“You, you ‘suppose there are worse-’” Seteth stammered. “Are you taking this seriously?! That is your daughter you are talking about!” 

“What do you want me to do, Seteth?! I’m not going to tell her how to live her life.” Under his breath, he added, “I doubt she’d listen anyways.”

“So you’re just going to allow Sitri’s only child to… to… to  _ fraternize _ , with a known assassin-”

“With a  **_what_ ** now?!”

Seteth froze. Then, in a smaller voice, “you told me that you were already aware-”

“He told us that he was a  _ thief, _ Seteth, I would never have hired him if I’d known-” wait just a minute here. “...what makes you think he’s an assassin?”

“...that is confidential information.” Oh, so the Church of Seiros was sponsoring assassinations now. Lovely. He stood and started pacing to try to calm his nerves a bit.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this earlier?!” 

“I did not think it relevant-”

“Not  _ relevant?”  _ He paused his pacing. “Seteth, for all intents and purposes, I helped a professional assassin gain access to a fortified military position which is currently housing the heirs to  _ three of the Kingdom’s major houses. _ Do you have any  _ idea _ how deep of shit I’ll be in if things go south?!” And not just him; likely the entire mercenary troop would be under suspicion. Byleth especially, since she’d been spending so much time with the man, and holy  _ shit _ the longer he thought about this the worse it got.

“I… had not considered that,” Seteth admitted begrudgingly.

“Of course you fucking didn’t, you’ve never given two shits about anyone outside your precious family.” Seteth flinched slightly at that. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go deal with yet another problem that could have been avoided if you’d bother to tell me anything.”

With that, he stormed out the door.

===========================

Seteth caught up with him halfway through his search of the grounds, ostensibly to provide support. Jeralt ignored the other man, focusing instead on devising a plan of action. Under normal circumstances, if someone was suspected to be an assassin he’d just get some backup, capture them, and turn them in to the local authorities. Bit dangerous, sure, but relatively straightforward.

But these were far from normal circumstances. For one thing, he couldn’t imagine Byleth would react very well to her friend (possibly more, but he decided not to think about that) being sent to the gallows. And for another, well… loath as he was to admit it, the kid had really helped them in the fight against those dark mages. In fact, he’d been generally helpful for the entire time he’d been with the mercenary troop; while that had likely just been a ploy to gain their trust, something about turning such a friendly person over to the guards didn’t sit well with him.

They couldn’t allow him to stay in this fort, though. Even if he wasn’t here on an assignment, it would only be a matter of time before he learned how much Sreng was willing to pay to have their opponents eliminated. 

Perhaps Jeralt could just... convince him to leave. That seemed like the best outcome any of them could hope for at this point.

They found Ashe at the archery range with Byleth, helping her practice with throwing knives. Just like he had a few days ago. And shouldn’t that have been a red flag right there, because what thief would need that many knives, and what was he playing at here, and was he trying to rope Byleth into some scheme, and shouldn’t Jeralt had fucking  _ figured it out _ , and-

Okay, okay. Calm down. Clearly, this was a bad time for a confrontation. He should wait until there was less weaponry, and Byleth was further away-

“Ashe, we need to speak with you a moment.” 

_ Goddess dammit Seteth. _

“Oh?” Ashe turned, and his brow furrowed with concern as his eyes flicked between the two. “...what about?” Jeralt didn’t miss the hint of trepidation in his voice.

Too late, Seteth caught Jeralt’s pointed look and recognized the danger of making accusations while your opponent had both weapons and a potential hostage within range. “...on second thought, perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere.” He was clearly attempting to sound nonchalant. He was, even more clearly, failing.

“I think we should discuss it  _ here _ ,” Ashe countered, eyes narrowed. 

Right, so he definitely knew what this was about. Jeralt started to second-guess his plan. Hopefully offering Ashe a window of escape would be enough to prevent him from lashing out, but if he did decide to fight back, Byleth was standing  _ right there, _ and she didn’t even  _ know,  _ and-

**Calm.** Calm. 

“...Byleth,” Jeralt began carefully, “why don’t you go-”

“No.” Her expression was blank, but her crossed arms gave off an air of defiance.  _ Dammit. _ He’d feel  _ so  _ much less stressed about this if his daughter wasn’t in stabbing range. 

He took a deep breath and tried to hide his fear. “Alright. Ashe, here’s the deal. You’ve got ten minutes to gather your stuff and leave before I report you. Please don’t make this difficult.”

Ashe stared back at him, seemingly in shock. He opened his mouth a few times, but apparently couldn’t find the proper words with which to defend himself. And there truly weren’t any; the mere fact that he hadn’t asked what he was being accused of spoke volumes. He was clearly aware of this fact from the way his expression slowly transitioned from surprise to defeat.

The tense silence was broken by Byleth. “Report him for what?”

After a moment, Seteth cleared his throat. “For the assassination of a member of the nobility.”

Ashe snapped out of his bleak mood to glare at Seteth. “Oh, like you’re one to talk.” 

Seteth’s eye twitched, but he otherwise kept his composure. “I haven’t the slightest idea what-” 

“Oh cut the crap Seteth,” he snapped, in a harsh tone that seemed utterly at odds with his usual demeanor. “There’s blood on your hands too. At least  _ I _ kept my fucking mouth shut.”

“Do  _ not _ take that tone with me. The Church did you a favor by agreeing to accept your siblings into-”

**“Ten. Minutes.”** Jeralt reminded, attempting to regain some control of the situation. He was completely ignored.

“A favor, was it?! It sure doesn’t feel like one sometimes. Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do to pay for it?!”

The words hung in the air.

“Yes, I do,” Seteth replied quietly, a surprising amount of sympathy in his voice. “That is why you need to leave.”

Ashe stared him down for a few long moments. Then, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I… suppose that’s fair.” He took a shaky breath. “I’ll- I’ll just be going then, I guess...” his voice cracked a little, and Jeralt swore he could see the beginnings of tears. 

Ashe turned to face Byleth, not quite meeting her eyes. 

“Byleth, I…” he struggled for a long moment, searching for the right words. Failing that, he shook his head and simply bolted.

Byleth watched his retreat, seemingly frozen in shock. After a minute, she glanced back at Jeralt. 

“What’s going on?” Jeralt was startled to hear her voice waver slightly; the fact that she was having any noticeable reaction made this officially the most upset he’d ever seen her. And shit, that made him feel like a bit of an asshole. But it had to be done. 

When it became clear that Jeralt was not going to offer an explanation, Seteth cleared his throat. “I am not informed as to the full extent of his actions since, but five years ago Ashe Ubert was involved in the assasination of a minor Kingdom lord.” Jeralt got the feeling that Seteth was being purposefully vague. Stupid Church.

“Five years,” Byleth echoed flatly.

“We do have reason to believe he has played a key role in more recent assassination plots,” Seteth pointed out hastily. “He certainly did not deny the implication just now.”

Byleth just stared, unimpressed.

Jeralt stepped forwards. “Look, kiddo, I know the two of you were close, but… the situation at this fort is fragile enough as it is.”

No response.

“We can’t afford to take unnecessary risks, especially not with the lives of the nobles.”

Nothing. 

“I hate to say it, but having him here was a liability.”

…

He was practically pleading with her now. “You have to understand, he isn’t worth the-”

She suddenly strode past him, unnecessarily shoving him on her way. He stumbled backwards a few steps, but maintained his balance. Oh dear. He’d never seen her so openly angry; it was honestly more than a little unnerving.

“Byleth? Where are you going?” Still no answer. “Byleth!” 

Ignoring him, she stormed silently out of the archery range. 

Jeralt considered following her, but… he could understand if she wanted to be alone right now. She’d get over it in time. Hopefully.

“Well,” Seteth remarked, “I think it’s safe to say that could have gone better.”

It took all of Jeralt’s self control not to punch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...happy Valentine's Day?
> 
> For the record, this is not the bit I was hoping would line up with this holiday. But, off the record, I'm rather amused that it did.


	14. On the Subjectivity of Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth misses a deadline, Sothis is quiet for once, Ingrid tells a story, Felix shares a strategy, and Sylvain makes a bargain.

Byleth should have gone straight to the gate. 

She had decided to check the barracks first. Perhaps Ashe was still packing his things. Perhaps she could get some answers. Perhaps this was all a misunderstanding.

Perhaps she could talk him out of leaving.

But ten minutes was not very long, or he hadn’t wanted to risk it, because he hadn’t been at the barracks and now she’d finally made it to the gate and Jesse was standing in front of her and saying that she was too late, that Ashe had already left.

She stared at the gate without really seeing it. Where was he headed? How far had he gotten? Could she catch up? 

...should she even try?

Jesse said something else, then, but it barely registered. Because as he said it, he handed her a book. 

A very, very familiar book. 

She should have gone straight to the gate.

===========================

_...do you want to talk about it?_

Byleth didn’t respond. If Sothis couldn’t infer the answer, she could just read her mind and find out. Put a little work in for once in her miserable existence. 

_...okay, just… let me know if you change your mind._

Ugh. That made her feel like a bit of an ass, it wasn’t Sothis she was mad at after all… ...but, well, she supposed the other already knew that.

Byleth stared blankly through the book resting on her lap, absentmindedly fiddling with the small scrap of cloth they’d been using as a bookmark. It was very near the back cover, they’d almost finished the book before... 

Well. Before her first, best, and quite possibly _only_ friend had left. Though he hadn’t so much ‘left’ as been unceremoniously kicked out, and all for something that had happened _five years ago…_

Perhaps it was due to her amnesia, but that felt like a long time. She’d spent her entire conscious existence being judged for the person she was five years ago; she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But on the other hand, assassination was kind of a big deal. Sure, _she’d_ killed a lot of people, but there was a pretty major moral difference between putting a sword in someone’s chest and putting a knife in their back.

But, then again, he’d been a kind, considerate friend for the entire time she’d known him-

But he never told her-

But he gave her the book-

...she didn’t even get to say _goodbye_.

Byleth stared vacantly into the small fire in the common room. A few hours that had passed, now, yet somehow she _still_ wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this. And she’d been doing so _well_ with feelings lately.

“Hey.” A quiet voice shook her from her thoughts as Ingrid pulled up a chair.

Byleth briefly glanced at her, but didn’t otherwise respond. She didn’t particularly feel like navigating a conversation right now.

“I heard what happened,” Ingrid began gently. “Are you doing okay?”

Byleth shrugged. It was the most honest answer she could give. Ingrid waited a few moments, concern clear on her face. She turned away from Byleth, to look into the fireplace, and awkwardly cleared her throat.

“It’s not quite the same thing, but… We had a friend -Felix, Sylvain, and I, I mean- who… made some mistakes, when he was a bit younger.” Her hands fiddled in her lap. “I know it can be hard, to learn that someone you respect and care about is capable of terrible things.”

Byleth nodded slightly. She didn’t quite know what to say.

“Our friend has done some great, selfless things too, though. And maybe it would be easier if he hadn’t, if we could separate the two halves. But he’s just the same one person, at his best and at his worst.” She smiled sadly. “Sylvain and I decided that the good outweighed the bad, that whatever else he may be, he’s still our friend. Felix, though… well, I think he’s still deciding. He has been for a long time now.”

The fire crackled in the silence.

She shook herself, and took a shaky breath. “I guess my point is, you get to make your own choices, about how to feel about… the whole thing. No one will blame you if you don’t forgive him. But… no one will blame you if you do. If that makes sense.”

“What does it matter?” Byleth asked quietly. “I’m never going to see him again.” And that was the worst bit, really, because she wouldn’t get to hear his side of things, or get any sort of, of…

_Closure?_ Sothis suggested gently.

_...yeah._

“You mean you’re _probably_ not going to see him again,” Ingrid corrected sharply. “He’s not dead, he’s just elsewhere.”

Well, Ingrid did have a point, it certainly could be wor-

...

She didn’t _know_ that. 

She only knew that Ashe was alive as of this morning. Something could happen to him at any time. _She would never know._

_Woah woah woah, calm down, he’s probably fine-_

Byleth’s sudden panic must have shown on her face, because Ingrid’s eyes went wide. “Oh, goddess,” she put her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry, I’m terrible at this sort of thing, I didn’t mean- I meant, there’s still a chance you’ll see him again, right? That’s better than nothing?” 

The silence was deafening.

Ingrid sighed, then held out her arms with an apologetic smile. “Sorry… would you like a hug? Maybe that would be better than talking.”

Byleth nodded after a moment, and Ingrid pulled her into a loose embrace.

It was, on the whole, the second best hug she’d ever had.

===========================

Unfortunately, as a wise friend once told her, a hug couldn’t actually fix anything. 

Byleth began the cold hike to the western end of the fort. It was very late now. Ingrid had left to get some sleep, and Byleth didn’t think she could bear sitting alone by the fireplace for a second longer. And the moon was still a sliver, after all, and at least it would make Sothis happy. One of them should be happy. It was only fair.

_If you get hypothermia so I can view some dots, I will be very cross with you,_ Sothis warned, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it.

After a trek that seemed much longer without someone to talk to, Byleth finally reached her destination, and turned the handle-

It made a useless clacking noise. 

The watchtower was locked. 

Why had she expected any different.

===========================

The next day was… not much better. She just didn’t really know what to do; the last few times life was upsetting, the one thing that had reliably cheered her up was the presence of the very person she was missing.

(She briefly entertained the thought of packing up and going after him. But she wouldn’t even know where to look. It was probably a bad plan.) 

(Probably.)

Currently, she was practicing throwing knives in an attempt to… just have something to do, honestly. Though perhaps this was a bad plan, as the archery range itself was a constant reminder of the previous day’s events. She couldn’t help but feel that if she’d said something, fought for Ashe to at least get the chance to explain himself, maybe things wouldn’t have played out so poorly. Then again, this was on Jeralt too; maybe he shouldn’t have threatened Ashe with a deadline so tight that he couldn’t even pause to say goodbye. 

Or _maybe,_ Ashe shouldn’t have hidden the fact that he was a _fucking assassin._

_...not to play devil’s advocate, but, he_ **_did_ ** _get kicked out the moment people knew._

_Well, yeah, but he might not have if he had just admitted it on his own._

_Why not? It's the same crime, is it not?_

_That- It-_ She struggled to find a response to that. _It’s just, the principle of the thing, you know?_

Their conversation was interrupted by a pointed coughing noise. Byleth looked over to see Felix standing off to the side, with his usual expression of belligerent disinterest. 

“Come on. We’re sparring.” He started walking away. When she didn’t immediately follow, he rolled his eyes. “Or just stare at the target all afternoon. See if I care.”   
  
...yeah, okay, that had probably looked pretty odd to an outside viewer. And she had nothing better to do, after all.

They entered the sparring grounds. The arena, which had seemed so bright in the light mists of early sunrise just a few days before, appeared somehow empty and gloomy today. She supposed most of the fort’s inhabitants were staying inside, what with the temperature dropping and all. The cold had never bothered her much, though.

Felix silently handed her a practice sword. She took the weapon-

-and had to immediately jump backwards to dodge his first swing. Oh, ok. Apparently the fight was on.

Byelth mostly just parried and dodged, not really feeling invested enough to put her best effort in. Quite unconsciously, her eyes were drawn towards the ‘spectator area’, as she was reminded of that spar a few days ago-

-Ashe was so obviously not a morning person and having a terrible time, but whenever he caught her looking over, he had given her such a cheerful smile-

Felix’s sword slammed into her side and she stumbled back into the present.

“You’re still thinking. Stop it.” 

She opened her mouth to argue, but he was already charging her again and she took a stinging hit to the shoulder before managing some hasty parries and falling back into the rhythm of the fight. Asshole. Oh, she was _not_ going to let him win after pulling that shit.

_Yeah, kick his ass!_

Byleth finally found an opening and went on the offensive, driving her opponent backwards a few steps.

It was unclear how long the match went after that, as every moment was occupied with the swift planning and predicting and calculating that she had always loved about swordfighting. Though clearly outmatched, she took pride in the few powerful hits of hers that landed.

Eventually, he held up a hand, panting. “Alright, alright, you got me. That’s enough.”

Byleth nodded just a bit smugly, sheathing the practice sword. Glancing up, she noticed for the first time that the sun was actively setting. The day had flown by somehow. And she felt… well, not quite happy, but certainly lighter than this morning. Less emotionally exhausted, perhaps, now that she’d taken a break from constant stressing.

Something must have shown on her face, or perhaps Felix could just make an educated guess. “It doesn’t work forever. I wish it did. But it’s a place to start.”

===========================

Yet again, Byleth found herself sitting by the fireplace. Holding the book. Filled with indecision.

Painful as it was to admit, she probably wouldn’t see Ashe again. He could be anywhere by now, and he was probably taking care to cover his tracks now that he knew the game was up. So, really, there was no reason not to just read the ending. They’d left off at a bit of a cliffhanger, and it felt wrong to leave it unfinished-

...but, well, it had always been _their thing._

Distractedly, she opened the book to one of the dog-eared pages. This illustration depicted a mystical dragon-like beast, colored with bright greens and golds. The creature’s majesty was marred only by a faded brown splotch along the side of the page where Ashe’s younger brother had spilled something.

His siblings… From what he’d told her, he kept this book for years as a way to remember them. Yet he’d left without it. So maybe that had been another lie. 

Or maybe he’d wanted her to be able to finish the story. That seemed more likely. He couldn’t read, after all, he’d mentioned that it was wasted on him. 

Or maybe... he had left her the book not because he didn’t care about it, but because he _did_ care about _her_. 

_Because he wanted you to remember him._

It took a moment for Sothis’ words to sink in. The moment they did, Byleth snapped the book shut, the resulting _*thunk*_ loud enough that some of the common room’s other inhabitants glanced over in alarm. A quick glare reminded them to mind their business, after which she returned to staring blankly at the cover, lost again in thought.

Finally, she stood to leave with a sigh. One of these days, she’d finish reading the book on her own. But, well, there was no reason to rush that, right?

===========================

“Byleth! How’s the loveliest of mercenaries doing on this fine day?”

She turned to glower halfheartedly at Sylvain as they walked out of what might have been the least productive strategy meeting yet. 

Seteth had announced that the Knights were delayed. Jeralt had used this to start an argument. Sylvain had desperately tried to change the subject to an impending cold front, which turned out to be the _reason_ the knights were delayed. It had taken quite some time to learn that, though, since Seteth appeared more cross with Sylvain than usual and disinclined to volunteer information. Meanwhile, Jeralt’s frequent and unsubtle attempts to pull Byleth in the ‘conversation’ hit a brick wall because she still wasn’t talking to him. 

Overall, it had been a complete shitshow, and while Sylvain was the only one of the three that Byleth was willing to speak to right now… she still wasn’t really willing to speak to him right now.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” He sighed theatrically. “And after all the trouble I’ve gone to on your behalf, too. I’m wounded, truly.”

“...trouble?” Damn it all, she was a tiny bit curious what he was going on about.

“ _Such_ trouble! I had to swear to Seteth that I would _never_ attempt to hit on his sister! _Never!”_ He leaned closer and muttered conspiratorially, “honestly, I wouldn’t have anyways, I really don’t think she’d be interested. Buuuuuuuuut Seteth doesn’t need to know that.” 

He winked. She stared back, unimpressed.

“Whew, tough crowd.” His expression grew more serious. “So, uh, Ingrid mentioned that you were upset about not seeing Ashe again.”

Oh, wonderful. She nodded hesitantly, torn between being grateful for the sympathy she was getting and being annoyed that everyone seemed acutely aware of her personal business.

Sylvain nodded back. “Right, ‘cause it’s a big continent and he could be anywhere by now, I totally see the problem. But I figured, Seteth hired him once, he might have some more information, right?” 

He paused dramatically. 

When she didn’t respond, he carried on: “...so, anyways, I did some of my best pestering, and it turns out that Ashe’s two younger siblings go to Garreg Mach. Apparently allowing them to attend the school was a condition of whatever shady deal they had going.” He made a face. “Still couldn’t get details on that, sadly.”

Byleth waited for him to get to the point.

“Don’t you see, Byleth?” A sincere smile spread across his face. “He’s gotta visit them sometimes, to drop off the tuition money if nothing else.”

Well yeah, she supposed that must-

OH.

Honestly, it felt almost surreal, to just be handed a solution so easily; but she wasn’t about to complain. It was a huge relief, knowing that at the very least she would be able to find him again, if she wanted to. And, well, she _did_ want to. Although…

“...it might not matter. He might not want to see me,” she muttered uncertainly. Sure, she’d had only the best intentions when she offered him a job, but he’d nearly been hanged for it.

_You are really dense sometimes, you know that?_

Sylvain chuckled and shook his head. “Byleth, and I say this with utmost sincerity: there is not a single guy on this entire _continent_ who wouldn’t want to see you.” 

She huffed a short laugh despite herself, and for the first time in days, she felt a smile creep onto her face.

===========================

That night Byleth sat down by the fire and reread the opening passages of _Loog and the Maiden of Wind._ There was no harm in just remembering how it went, of course. 

She’d save the ending for when they were back together again.

===========================

The next morning, and in significantly higher spirits, Byleth left the barracks to find Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix gathered just outside. They appeared to be caught in an urgent discussion, which from the tone of their voices seemed to be bordering on an argument. That was… worrying.

_Well, then? Go and see what is happening._

_It’s probably not any of my business,_ Byleth argued.

_Eh, you will not know until you try. And besides, they all meddled in_ **_your_ ** _business._

The decision became moot when Sylvain noticed that she was standing nearby and waved her over with an almost manic expression.

“Hey, Byleth, you feeling any better?” Without waiting for a response, he continued, “Great, great; well anyways, know what will take your mind off things? A mission.”

“What-”

“It seems that Sreng’s finally started attacking the villages in this region,” Ingrid explained grimly, sneaking concerned glances at her friend. “A few minutes ago, a message came requesting aid for a small town about half a day’s journey away. I’ll fly ahead and see what I can do, but…”

“It’s a waste of time,” Felix grumbled. “There’s not going to be anything left when we get there.” There was a tinge of sadness to his voice.

**“We’re going,”** Sylvain snapped. **“** End of discussion.”

Ingrid coughed pointedly and tipped her head towards Byleth.

“...well, I mean, the three of us are,” he amended. “We should probably have more forces, but I don’t want to bring a bunch of randos along because… well, you know. You don’t have to, but if you wanted to help, it’d really be appreciated.”

Hm. It was true that she couldn’t mope forever, and from what she’d learned yesterday, she wouldn’t need to. Besides, she _was_ getting paid; although, honestly, the proper mercenary response would be to ask for a bonus for something outside the job description.

But she wasn’t going to make a big deal of that, because above all else, they were her _friends_ (and wasn’t that exciting, she had _multiple_ friends!) and they were asking for help.

Byleth nodded. “I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid: Have empathy and focus on the positives!  
> Sylvain: Think critically to find a solution!  
> Felix: S U P P R E S S T H A T S H I T

**Author's Note:**

> If you have thoughts on this fic, please consider leaving a comment to max out my motivation. Polite criticism is always welcome, especially if you feel like something is unclear.
> 
> You may also accost me on tumblr at https://the-cheerful-pessimist.tumblr.com/


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